Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (21 page)

 

Chapter 41

T
HE NIGHT IS SILENT.

I listen for any noise that might indicate Anders is around, but also signs that West and his men have found this ship. Nothing. The only sound is a seagull squawk and the distant sound of water flapping against the anchored ships.

I've come onboard at the front of the ship, a somewhat wide-­open space with giant metal chains looped here and there and odd thimble-­shaped protrusions as big as barrels sprouting up here and there in no seemingly logical way.

At the very front of the ship, a small gangplank-­like bridge three stories up in the air connects two structures, one that must be the bridge and pilothouse, and another room, octagon shaped, with windows on nearly all sides. The captain's quarters? Toward the middle of the ship, there is a one-­story area with doors and windows.

Thinking about what the Channel 5 cameraman said, about how there are some rooms with beds perfectly preserved on some of the ships, I decide to search the main deck first. A door nearby appears to lead to the bulk of the ship.

Gripping my gun in one hand and my flashlight in the other, I creep toward the door. I tug gently on the handle. It won't budge. With my fingers, I carefully feel the outline of the door. It is sealed shut. It hasn't been opened for ages. I head toward the center of the ship. Another door greets me, about twenty feet down.

I run my fingers around the edges of this one. It is not sealed. It has been opened recently. I wrap my fingers around the handle and turn, holding my breath and counting to ten so that if someone is watching the doorknob from inside, it will be difficult to tell it is moving.

When I've turned it a full rotation, I stop, holding it, and count to ten again. Then, taking the gun in my other hand, I crouch to my knees and crack the door. I open it only wide enough for the nose of the gun and one eye to peer into the darkness. It is so dark inside that I realize I'm a sitting duck if someone is there and sees the crack of light I'm letting into the dark room. If someone is there, he's biding his time and already knows I'm here, so I throw open the door, casting a door-­shaped glow of faint light into the room. It is just a small hallway with stairs leading up and down. I point my tiny flashlight in both directions. Which way to go? The walls of the passageway are painted white and are lined with thick pipes and electrical boxes, also painted white. Oblong doors, about a foot off the floor, cut into the wall of the passageway every ten feet. All the oblong doors have big red wheels that open and close them, making them waterproof. I head toward a small staircase to my right. At the foot of the staircase, I wait, listening. After a few seconds of hearing nothing, I mount the stairs and enter a rectangular room.

The beam of my tiny flashlight reveals it's a mess hall. But what looks like an executive one, for the officers alone, with only a few long tables with flat bowls and utensils still scattered on them, as if a group of sailors just got up from a meal. The wallpaper is peeling, revealing green mold and streaks of red. Dim moonlight filters in from several porthole-­type windows. Green chairs with bases bolted directly into the floor are coated with dirt and rust, and the floor is the same.

For a second I think I hear a small, soft sound from one of the windows, but after I freeze and strain to hear, the only noise is a gust of wind.

I leave and head back down the stairs. Moving faster now and keeping the tiny light trained ahead of me, I head down the passageway, stepping carefully through oblong doorways, the hairs on my arms standing up as I imagine the light, now bouncing around the white-­painted walls, shining on Anders Frank's face. At the end of the passageway, another flight of stairs leads up.

At the top of the stairs is another oblong door, but this one is sealed. I stick my flashlight between my teeth and turn the red wheel with both hands. My arms strain with the effort, but finally the wheel stops and I push. The door opens with a tiny whoosh and reveals a smaller passageway lined with doors and a few portholes. Through the portholes, the black sky seems a bit lighter. I'm running out of time. Dawn is growing closer.

Realizing this, adrenaline shoots through me, making me feel panicky. I need to find Grace now. Find her and get back to check on Donovan. I wish I could call and find out how Donovan is. But I can't think of that. I have to focus on finding Grace. At the end of the hall is a sign that glows orange in my flashlight:
E
SCAPE SCUTTLE. DO NO
T BLOCK.

I pause, listening for any noise. When I hear nothing, I crack the closest door, the first door to my left, flinging it open and pointing the beam of the flashlight inside. It is a tiny room with a small sink and curvy green dentist chair bolted into the ground.

Leaving the door wide open, I rush to open the next door, my flashlight darting around the room, looking for gleaming eyes that show life. Looking for Grace.

But this room is also empty. The wires and cables in the ceiling are exposed. Maps line each wood-­paneled wall, and several tables back up into benches built into the walls. This time the chairs bolted into the floor are red. This must be a game room. One table, which is tipped sideways off its stand, is marked for chess, checkers, and backgammon. These rooms are all surface level, with open portholes that have exposed them to the weather and corrosion.

I rush out of that room and push open the next door, until I've glanced in all twelve. Nearly tripping, I race down a set of metal stairs at the end of the passageway that must lead to the deck below.

On this floor, the first door opens up into a giant dorm area. This deck is much more protected. There is little dirt or rust; just some dust. The dozens of yellow metal bunk beds set closely together still contain rumpled white sheets, as if a sailor only recently arose from them to start his day. A chill travels up my back and across my scalp. How many ghosts of former sailors haunt this vessel? I make the sign of the cross, and this time, I gently close the door behind me.

At the end of the hall is another door, leading up three metal steps to a smaller hallway. The first door reveals a private bedroom. Officer's quarters? This room looks untouched. Giant windows let in moonlight. But I still use my flashlight to scan it. Lamps built into the tables and nightstands seem new, although they are not. The bed, a couch, a line of dressers, a vanity in front of a large mirror are attached to the walls, while a chair in front of the vanity and a small coffee table with dusty magazines is bolted to the floor. A small doorway shows a tiny bathroom. This floor must contain officers' quarters.

Realizing this, I hold my breath. If Frank is on this ship, he's probably nearby. If he lives on this ship or is staying here, he's most likely in one of these luxury suites.

I strain to hear anything in the silence but only hear the distant creak of the ship pulling at the chains that hold it to the ship next door as the waves pull them slightly apart. I can almost feel him. My fingers tingle. Grace is close. I am close.

A search of the other officers' quarters is futile until I throw open the door at the farthest end of the hallway. My heart races when the beam of my flashlight shines on two couches made into beds, each with sleeping bags spread upon them. A small counter holds bottles of water and boxes of crackers and cans of soup. I rush over and lay my hands flat on the sleeping bags, first one, then the other. The heat still radiates slightly from the down filling. They were here. I stop myself from screaming her name.

Shining the flashlight around the room, I see chess pieces set up on a small table marked with a chessboard. Only three pieces remain on the board. A black king, a white pawn, and a white queen. Frank, Grace, and me. I study the board. He left this for me to find. The white queen is in the center of the board, while the black king and white pawn are on one end.

If this chessboard were a ship and we were the pieces, I'm in the middle, and Frank and Grace are at the very front of the ship. The captain's quarters. The pilot and bridge.

I race into the hall and up the metal stairs, not worrying about the noise. It's only when I fling the door open to the fresh air that I take a minute to think. I jerk my head around. There. Up high is a room with windows on nearly all sides. It is connected to the bridge by a small walkway. That has to be the captain's quarters.

I swivel my head in both directions. That's when I see it. Off to the right is a small winding metal staircase. It has a chain across it. That is where I need to go to get to the captain's quarters. That is where he is waiting for me. I stare at the black windows.

A cloud passes over the full moon and the night grows even darker, but as it passes and the moonlight streams back down, I see something shadowy pass in front of the windows. Something even darker than the dark. He's there.

 

Chapter 42

T
HE FOG HAS
crawled its way up the sides of the ship from the water below. A billowing stream of it floats across the deck at eye level between the captain's quarters and me. It will help conceal my stealthy trek to the stairway. I'm pretty sure that spiral staircase is the only way up to the captain's quarters. It was designed to keep the captain safe. Who knows when some rogue sailor would go crazy after months at sea and decide it would be a good idea to kill the captain of the ship?

I creep through the fog at a crouch, keeping one eye on the windows of the captain's quarters to see if there is movement or light. I'm not sure, but as I grow closer it seems like there might be a faint pinprick of light darting around inside. Then I see it for sure. A dancing sphere of light bouncing around the dark room. I blink, trying to focus, but don't see it again.

He wants me to know he is there.

My heart is screaming for Grace. It takes all my willpower to stop myself from running blindly up the stairs and crashing through that door with my gun drawn. It can't be that easy. He knows I'm coming. He's been waiting for me.

At the foot of the stairs, I peer up. From where I am, I can't see the windows, which means he can't see me. I hear the slightest thud and freeze, blood racing to my temples. Is he hurting her? Again, it takes everything I have not to rush up the stairs. Instead, I hunch over, crouching until my head grows level with the metal platform that leads to the bridge.

The captain's quarters are across that platform, on the opposite side. But traversing that gangplank-­like pathway makes me a sitting duck. I'm not sure I have a choice, though.

I hug the walls of the bridge and peer into the dusty window. In the dim moonlight, I can see the room is empty. I glance at the eastern horizon. Good God, the sky is getting lighter. There is a slight tinge of color in the distance. Dawn is coming.

My heart throbs in my ears. I'm running out of time. I can't go inside the captain's quarters. He wants me to go. That's why he let me see the light. It's a trap and I know it. If I'm dead, I won't be able to save Grace. He wants us both dead.

I need to lure him out of the captain's quarters before he hurts Grace. He shot Donovan, so I know he has a gun. Thinking of Donovan sends another wave of panic through my chest.
Get Grace
. He told me to get our daughter.

I'm counting on Anders Frank underestimating me. My only choice is to show myself. I have to do it. As the light rises on the horizon even more, I know I'm running out of time.

Where is West and his men? With a sinking feeling I realize he might never have received my voice messages. Right now I could sure use a sheriff's helicopter with a tactical team landing on the ship's deck.

But I'm also scared to death of that happening. What if the troops storm the ship and Frank panics and hurts Grace?

My advantage, what Anders Frank may not realize, is that I'm willing to die so my daughter doesn't. This is what I have to use to my advantage.

I take a deep breath and walk to the edge of the gangplank, eyes straight ahead on the captain's quarters.

“I'm here. Is this what you want?” The wind takes my words and swirls them away, but I know he can hear me. I can almost feel him listening to me across the way. “I'm here now, playing your game. Just like you wanted. Now, give me my daughter.”

I wait, holding my breath, bracing myself for the shock of a bullet or, worse, the sound of a blast coming from across the way where he is. But there is nothing but silence.

I'm staring at the bank of windows in the captain's quarters, searching for any movement in the darkness. I'm waiting and watching, when a small white face appears in the lower corner of a window. I gasp and scream her name, “Grace!” I'm already two steps forward when I see the look on her face and her small pink mouth forms a big O. She has her palm on the glass window as she mouths,
No
and looks behind me with terror.

For a second that seems to spin off into eternity, I take in my daughter's face. During this warped time, I am so filled with both terror and joy that I can't move. I know I should run or duck or sidestep whatever Grace sees behind me, but for a split second, just like on that beach, my limbs are frozen with fear. But I instantly shake it off. Not this time. Looking at Grace's little face in the window, I'm filled with a burst of adrenaline and hope. My daughter is alive. I have everything in the world to live for. This time I won't let my fear take over.

 

Chapter 43

K
EEPING MY EYES
on Grace, I fling myself to the side and down, but not before I feel searing pain in my shoulder. The white pain cripples me for a second, bringing me to my knees.

“Don't try to run,” Frank's nasally voice hisses behind me. “I'm not done with you yet.”

I try to roll away from him, but he takes his forearm and loops it around my head, pressing against my neck. My shoulder screams in pain at the same time I struggle to breathe against the pressure he has against my throat. With his arm around my windpipe and his knee in my back, he pats down the pockets of my trench coat and feels the gun. Then the weight of his hand and the gun is gone.

I gasp for air as he removes his arm from my neck and yanks me to my feet. The hilt of a knife is pressed against my throat. Then I see her. Grace stands at the other edge of the gangplank in a dirty white dress and bare feet.

“Mama?” Her lower lip is trembling.

“Grace. You have to listen to me very carefully. Go back into that room and go in the bathroom and lock the door until I . . . until a policeman comes to get you. Go now.”

She looks at me uncertainly but takes one step backward, eyeing the knife that Frank now holds to my throat. “Mama? Are you hurt?”

I don't think the stab wound in my shoulder went very deep, or I'd feel dizzy from blood loss. And the white-­hot pain has disappeared. “No. You need to go back inside right now.”

Grace looks at me and her face scrunches up. “Mama, I don't want to go back in there. I want to be with you.”

“That's right, Grace,” Frank says with his head resting on my shoulder, slightly rotating the hilt of the knife against my throat. “Come on over here and see your mama. I told you she would come, didn't I? Come see her now.” As he says this, I smell that cologne smell I caught on the beach during the vigil and now know why I recognized it. It was how he smelled the first time I saw him on the beach when he approached Grace. Now it is mixed with an unwashed sour smell.

Grace takes three steps forward, coming onto the gangplank, drawing closer.

He leans down and whispers in my ear, “Tell her to come over here and I won't slit your throat in front of your daughter.”

“No, Grace. Go back now.” I keep my voice firm and confident with authority so she will do as I say.

He holds the hilt of the knife tighter against my windpipe, making it hard to breathe.

“Grace,” he says in a low growl, “you know what will happen to your mother if you do what she says instead of what I say, right? We talked about this already, didn't we?”

Grace nods. Tears drip down her face. She takes another step toward us.

“He's lying, Grace.” It's hard to talk. “You know that nobody messes with a Giovanni. He knows better than to hurt me. He knows he will pay.” My words, more a threat to him than a message to Grace, are raspy from the pressure on my throat. “No matter what happens here, you need to go hide in that bathroom. Your papa and uncles and Nana would want you to do this. You know I'm telling the truth.”

Where is Agent West? I move my head, casting a glance to the side. Is he even coming? What if he never got my messages?

“You expecting someone?”

“Maybe.”

“You're lying.” He digs his knee into my back again.

“Go, Grace, now. Do as Mama says. Go lock yourself inside there. Whatever you do, don't open the door to this man. Promise? Promise?”

She looks uncertain. “Mama, I
have
to come so he doesn't hurt you. He said.” She takes another step toward us.

Panic floods me. I'm losing her. “Grace,
e` un uomo cattivo. Lui mente. Scappa via subito!!
” He is a bad man. He lies. Run away now!

“Speak fucking English,” he says, kneeing me hard in my kidney so I gasp.

But Grace understands. She nods, tears streaking her face, and steps backward until her back hits the building. Then she turns and runs. “Good girl.” Every muscle in my body relaxes. Even if I die right now, Noah West will find Grace. She won't open the door to Frank. As soon as I relax, my shoulder begins to throb in pain, some type of weird delayed reaction.

“It doesn't matter. She will die anyway. I will leave her here to starve,” Frank says.

“Let my daughter go. I'll do anything you want if you just let her off this ship. You can kill me and escape. Just spare her life.”

“There is no bargaining,” he says. I feel his breath near my ear. He has his body pressed up against me, and it sends a shudder of revulsion through me. “You can beg. It won't do you any good. That defeats the whole purpose.”

“What purpose?”

“Your death.”

“Why?” I don't care why. I just need to stall him until West and his men arrive or I figure out a way to get out of this situation.

“I got in touch with my dad again after my first kill,” Frank says, his voice a sour whisper by my ear. “It was sort of an accident. I didn't really mean for her to die. After my mom died, I was drinking a lot. I'd picked this woman up at a bar just for sex. Nothing else. But she didn't want to have sex, and we argued over it when I tried to unbutton her blouse. I pushed her, and she fell and hit her head. I panicked and dumped her body in the Delta in a sea bag with rocks, probably somewhere in the water below right now. And that's when I realized, that's when I finally understood my father and his needs and desires. I was just like him. I had never wanted to admit it, but after my first kill, I realized he couldn't help it.

“Later, when I found him, he told me everything about his life.” Anders shifts, and I wonder if I can use my heel to take out his knees. If only he loosens the grip on the knife hilt a little bit. “He told me what he did to your sister. He said it was her fault. She tempted him. He'd never touched a kid before. He had to kill her so he didn't get caught. She would've told on him for sure.”

A wave of dizziness seizes me at his words.
Pull it together, Giovanni, keep him talking
.

“I confessed to my dad what I'd done—­killing that girl—­and he absolved me. He told me we couldn't help it. It was in our blood. He told me all about how he denied that side of himself until that day he was driving down the road and saw your sister out in front of your house alone. It was like a message for him. He knew when he took her that there was no going back. He tried to deny it. He came home a week later and tried to pretend that nothing was going on, but my mom was onto him, he said, so he had to leave.”

His words send sour acid flooding my stomach. He just randomly picked my sister off our street and ruined all of our lives. On a whim. By a fluke because he happened to be driving down our road and saw her alone. Because I fucking had to brush my teeth before I went outside that day.

I try to focus on Frank's words. Now that he's started, he is on a roll.

“You ruined my life, so I wanted to return the favor. I work for the college system, and it wasn't easy finding a girl named Agnes. I called the bodies in to the Rosarito police station so your cop boyfriend would find them and see the Bible verses. I wanted you to know they were for you and you alone.”

“How have I ruined your life?” My voice verges on hysterics as I look at the lightening sky, praying for the sound of helicopter blades to carry across the water.

“My father is dead because of you.”

“That's absurd.” I nearly spit the words out. “As much as I wish I had killed him, his blood is not on my hands.”

“My father stopped being my dad the day he took your sister. After that, he could never go back. He could never again contain his impulses, his needs. It ruined my life. I was only four years old. Up until then my life was perfect. I don't have a lot of memories of my dad, since he left when I was so young, and I blame you for that, too, but I do remember that he took one whole week off work during the summer to build me a swing set in the backyard. He was my dad, all mine, until your sister came along.” His breath with its foul stench is hot on my neck now. “He left and I never saw him again until three years ago. I spent a year with him trying to make up for lost time before he died. I blame you. I blame your sister for leading him astray in the first place.”

I clench my fists in fury.

“Fuck you. My sister was an innocent little girl playing jump rope in our front yard when your father, a fucking perverted monster, took her and then left her dead like so much garbage. Your father is rotting in hell right now.”

I close my eyes for a few seconds. I need to keep him talking until West and his men arrive. The first small shimmer of light is rising on the horizon to our right. He must notice the slight turn of my head, because he sneers in my ear.

“As soon as the sun arises on the horizon, I'm slitting your throat. You will be my blood sacrifice.”

I need to keep him talking while I figure out how to escape. Right now, with the hilt of the knife pressed against my throat and his body pressed against my back, I am unable to get into any position to fight back.

“How did you find your father? The police and FBI have been looking for him for years.”

“It wasn't easy,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other. The grip on the knife hilt does not lessen, but I don't feel his body pressed as closely against mine as it was. I keep my eyes on the windows of the captain's quarters.
Focus on escaping and getting Grace
.

“My uncle finally told me. He'd been afraid to tell me when my mom was alive. She didn't want me to even know my dad was still alive.

“The first time I saw him he showed me the e-­mails he sent you. He said you were the reason he was living in a dump, living like a dog, hiding out from the FBI under a fake name. Because of you. He was fine for a while, but then he came home one day and his lady told him some FBI-­looking dude had been snooping around. He had to quit his job. He had to get a fake ID. He had to go into hiding. When I saw him, he was really sick, he had tuberculosis and couldn't even fucking go to the hospital for treatment because of you. He couldn't get a Social Security number, so he couldn't work and couldn't get health insurance.”

“None of that is my fault.” If I can only get him to back up a little, I can maneuver and use my heel to kick his groin or foot or calf.

“I'll tell you what
is
your fault,” he says, drawing back a little bit from me—­but not enough—­and spitting on the gangplank. “After my whole life wishing I had a dad, I finally found him but only got to be with him one year because of you. He didn't need to die. ­People can live with TB if they get meds. He said he'd rather die than risk exposure and go back to prison. So he did. He died. He didn't have to die. If you hadn't brought in the FBI and turned up the heat on him, he could've lived the rest of his life in peace.”

“You are talking nonsense,” I say, shooting a glance to my side. I don't think anybody is coming to help. I'm on my own. I need to make a plan.

At that moment, the very tip of the sun breaks the horizon.

“Better say your prayers. Your seconds are numbered now,” he says in his nasally voice, which has suddenly become wobbly.

Is he afraid to kill me in cold blood like this? Remembering the women he strangled, I doubt it.

“Killing you will not only help me seek revenge for my father, it will help me fulfill my need. Because that is what killing has become. A need. You understand that, don't you? You may not realize it, but you are just like me. You got a taste. You know what I mean.”

“I'm not like you.”
I'm a loving mother. I'm a normal, functioning member of society. I'm a good person.
“You are the spawn of the devil and a pervert.”

“I'm not a pervert.”

“Grace is five years old,” I say, spittle flying out with the force of my words.

“I'm not like him. I didn't touch her.”

Relief overcomes me so much that I sag until he catches me and jerks me to a standing position. My shoulder is now howling in pain. At the same time, my insides are filled with acidlike fury. Grace might have escaped this family's perversions, but Caterina didn't. I fight back images of his father with my sister. I can't go there. Not right now.

“You should've recognized me that day on the beach,” he says. “You should've known what I was.”

Not
who
he was.
What
he was. A killer.

He's right. I dismissed my intuition as paranoia. I ignored that warning that sang through my blood. Never again. Time is running out. It's now or never.