A Stolen Season (22 page)

I pulled off the top of the box, moved the loose packing material, and saw the dull gray metal inside.

One web, one
spider. That’s the way it works. Or so I thought.

I thought I was caught in one web myself, the spider a man named Gray. I thought Natalie was in another web entirely, the spider a man named Laraque. Kneeling beside this crate, in this boat, inside this boathouse, on this peninsula fifty miles south of Paradise, I came to know, finally, that there was only one web after all. One web with two spiders on opposite ends.

All those Mounties and OPP’s and American ATF agents helping out on the task force…I wondered if any of them had any idea this was going on. That this was at least one major source for Laraque’s guns. A key piece to their puzzle was sitting right here in this lonely boathouse, in a pleasure boat seemingly abandoned for the summer.

Not that they could use it. I was sure Gray knew exactly what he was doing here. A boat that belonged to someone else, sitting in a boathouse across the street from his summerhouse. Purely a coincidence, he’d say. Without a hard link, they couldn’t lay a glove on him. Like Laraque, Gray had enough money and power to make himself untouchable.

In any case, I still didn’t believe Gray had anything to do with Natalie’s death. Not directly. She was no threat to his end of the web. No, everything was pointing in the other direction. More and more each day.

But now, instead of having to go find Laraque…I had a new idea.

I climbed out of the boat, left the shore and came back up to the house. I peered in one of the back windows, saw no signs of life whatsoever. I tried the back door. It was locked. Once again, a delicate lock-picking operation was called for, so I found another rock and broke the window on the door, reached in, and opened it. I went to the kitchen and started looking in the drawers. I knew there had to be another key here, somewhere.

It felt strange to be in this house, but it was better than the alternative. The last thing I wanted to do was to go back across the street, have that smell hit me again, maybe even have to go upstairs looking for the key. I went through every drawer, was about to try the next room, when I saw the hooks on the wall. They were right above a poster showing every species of fish in the Great Lakes. On one ring there were two keys attached to a float. I grabbed them and left.

I went back down to the boathouse, found the switch for the overhead door, and hit it. It was a like a big garage door opening, except instead of a driveway there was water. It was late afternoon now, and the low sunlight came streaming in as the door opened.

I untied the boat, took the cover off, got in and climbed up to the top deck. I put the key in and started it, remembering a second later that you’re supposed to let a boat air out for a while if it’s been in such a confined space. But what the hell. The engine came to life and nothing exploded. I inched the throttle forward and the boat started to move.

I kept it straight as it cleared the boathouse, then I turned the boat to the right, toward the open water. I knew how treacherous the channels were around here. With all the little islands, all the sudden shallow areas where you could so easily grind the propeller into the rocks…I was going to need some help.

I turned on the GPS. The screen looked blank at first, then I saw a line start to form, drawn from the top of the screen toward the center. At the bottom there were several sets of numbers. One pair had to be my latitude and longitude. The other number, it was getting smaller…twenty then fifteen then eight…

It’s the depth, you idiot! I looked out at the water, and even in the fog I could see the large rock jutting up past the surface. I swung the boat hard to the left. When I looked back at the screen, the line had taken a turn, as well. The depth crept back up over twenty feet.

It’s drawing my route, I thought, every inch of the way. But how’s that going to help me? Then I saw a thick band appear on the edge of the screen. It got closer and closer to the central line. As I looked closer, I could see that the band was actually a thick accumulation of many thin lines, woven together like a rope. It was a history of every route this boat had taken. As long as I stayed in the band, I’d be retracing a safe passage.

I let out a long breath. This definitely made my life easier, at least for a while. I watched the depth hover in the twenties as I passed one small island after another, the rocks and trees floating by in a fog that was getting thicker by the minute. How anyone could have ever found his way through this maze without help, I couldn’t even imagine.

At first, I was thinking I’d need to find a hiding place for the boat, a dead-end channel maybe. But that idea didn’t last long. I could hardly see where I was going, for one thing. Even if I found a spot I could get to, I’d have no idea if the boat was really hidden. Not to mention the fact that I’d have to find my way back to Vinnie’s truck.

The next idea was to find a secluded island, somehow get the crates off the boat, one by one, like a pirate hiding his treasure. Then take the boat back empty.

Another totally stupid idea, I thought. You’ll never get close enough to the shore. What are you going to do, swim back and forth with the crates on your back?

I kept going. It took me about thirty minutes to clear the last island. The depth started dropping quickly, until a few minutes later it was over a hundred feet to the bottom of Lake Huron. Nothing like Superior, which can go down over a thousand feet, but more than enough for what I was about to do. The final idea, the one I had in the back of my mind the whole time.

I cut the engine and let the boat drift. Then I started grabbing the crates from the cabin. One by one, I dragged them out to the rear deck. I wasn’t sure why I felt I needed to open them, whether it was some kind of morbid fascination, or maybe just a confirmation of exactly what I was sending to the bottom of the lake. The first few crates all contained handguns. In the faint glow of the boat’s running lights, it was hard to say exactly what kind of guns these were, but I was pretty sure I was seeing some Colt automatics, some Brownings, some Smith & Wessons. Good solid, concealable handguns, with the ammo packed right inside each box—from .22 through .380, .45, nine-millimeter. Everything you needed to start your own little war.

Each gun hit the water with a muffled splash and disappeared in an instant. It was hard work throwing the guns overboard, dragging out the next crate, opening it. Eventually I got into the more exotic weapons, the machine pistols and the mini-assault rifles, all with several magazines apiece. Some of them looked like toys they were so compact, and I knew from experience they’d sound no louder than a sewing machine.

I had taken three slugs from a gun just like this one, I thought as I threw it over the side. I put a little something extra on the throw, heard it splash somewhere out of sight. A hell of a world this is, that men would make these machines, and with such loving care. Little pieces of metal sent flying faster than the eye can see—perfect, smooth little projectiles that part the skin and destroy everything beneath it.

What a goddamned world, I thought. What a hopeless goddamned world.

When I dragged out the next box, I opened it and pulled out a small .22 caliber pistol. The front sight had been removed, and threads cut into the muzzle end of the barrel. I reached in and pulled out the suppressor. It was a cylinder, about eight inches long, much thicker than the barrel of the gun. I screwed it on tight, held the thing in my hand and looked it at for a long time.

I had never heard the gunshots, I thought. I was just down the road. When I came back, she was already gone. Whoever did it, he had a gun like this. Small caliber, low velocity. A good enough suppressor to damp down the sound to almost nothing.

Yes. He had a gun that looked just like this one.

I threw it as far as I could, felt the sudden stab of pain in my right shoulder. I picked up the rest of the crate and heaved the whole thing at once. I went back to the cabin, grabbed the next crate, my back straining with the effort, my shoulder throbbing with a dull ache now. I threw that crate into the water without opening it. Then the next crate and the next. I didn’t want to see any more guns. I didn’t want to feel the light coating of gun oil on my fingers. I wanted every last one of these crates on the bottom of the lake as quickly as possible, every last gun sunk a hundred feet in black water, every last round gone forever.

I had no idea how many guns I threw overboard, how much ammo. There had to be a good seven hundred cubic feet of storage space on the boat. If I had sat down, I could have figured it out. How many hundreds of guns, enough to outfit a small army. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars in street value. All I knew was that none of these guns would ever make it to Toronto, would never kill a human being, would never do to somebody else what had been done to me.

If nothing else, this was one good thing I could do on this one day of what was left of my life.

When I thought I was done, I went down on one knee, breathing hard and rubbing my shoulder. I went back into the cabin to double-check, saw one more crate in the dark corner. When I dragged it out, I noticed it felt a little lighter than the others. Instead of throwing it right overboard, I opened it.

Something a little different, I thought. Just for variety. I reached in and pulled out a small .380 stainless steel pistol, with a barrel that couldn’t have been more than two and a half inches long. Something for a lady to put in her purse, maybe. But no, what’s this?

I pulled out an ankle holster. The gun fit right into it. This could come in handy, I thought. I grabbed a box of .380 shells, put everything in the pocket of my jacket.

I looked to see what else was in the crate, pulled out a black plastic box. I opened it. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. It was a Taser, the kind with the two electrodes that shoot out under air power and deliver a fifty-thousand-volt shock to whoever’s unlucky enough to be standing in front of you. They were just starting to talk about these when I left the police force. I never got the chance to use one myself. Now maybe I would.

I still had Leon’s gun tucked in my waistband. Add to that a backup gun hidden in an ankle holster and a Taser. It may have been a complete illusion, but I felt like my chances had just gotten a little better.

I threw the rest of the last box into the water and watched it go down. I looked out at the fog. It had erased everything, like nothing else in the world had ever existed at all. Just me and an empty boat, drifting to nowhere. That’s all there was.

I wanted to stay out there. I wanted the fog to erase the memory, too, to make me believe it had never happened.

No such luck, Alex. You’ve played this card, now you’ve got to see the next.

I went back to the wheel, looked at the GPS and saw absolutely nothing. There was just me on the tip of a pencil-thin line, with no other history, like maybe the fog
had
erased everything else. Then I figured I had probably been drifting south, and if I was turned to the east now…

I started the motor and swung her around to the northwest. In a few minutes, I saw the old routes reappear at the top of the screen. I followed the band back through the maze of islands and peninsulas, another half hour on the water with the rocks and the trees slipping in and out of sight. It was getting darker now.

As I got closer to the boathouse, I had just enough light to center the nose in the open doorway. I felt the whole boat rock as I bumped into the back gangplanks a little harder than I wanted. It occurred to me that I had found the boat parked nose out, and now it was nose in. To whoever found it, this would be a clue that someone else had been here. This plus the broken window in the door and the fact that every last one of the guns had disappeared.

Before I left the place, I found a clipboard with paper and pen tucked in next to the driver’s console. I thought hard about what message I wanted to leave. It was Laraque I wanted, but I figured somebody working for Gray would probably find this first. No matter. If both spiders are on the web, all you do is pull hard enough to make them both feel it.

“I have your merchandise,” I wrote. A lie I regretted for all of two seconds. “I know you’re shorthanded right now, so have Mr. L contact me and I’ll be happy to make the delivery myself. I’ll talk to him and only him.”

I underlined the “only.” Then I signed my name. I knew that’s all I needed.

I knew they’d know where to find him.

And where to find me.

When I got
back to Paradise, it hit me. I needed to be in my own cabin in case they came looking for me. I needed to stay next to my phone in case they tried to call me. I pulled up in front, got out of the truck, and went to the door. No use hanging around outside thinking about it. I just opened the door and stepped inside.

Someone had done me a great favor. Whether it was one of the county deputies or one of the state guys, someone had cleaned up the place, had put everything as right as they could make it, had even tried to clean the floor.