Hell's Bay (24 page)

“And the next day Liz was gone,” I said.

“How did you know?”

“I knew.”

“What? You read that in the photo? In your mother's face?”

“Go on,” I said. “Finish your story.”

Liz and Quentin had become lovers a year before that photo was taken. Though Abigail had no suspicion of the affair, she later assumed that her husband must have known, and maybe even John. And it was likely the two of them conspired in Liz's escape, each for his own reason.

Hours after that photo was taken, the lovers disappeared. Years would pass before Abigail uttered her daughter's name. She never wasted a tear, never permitted a mention of her, and never forgave her husband for buying that car.

She would have drawn her last breath without knowing what became of Liz were it not for Charles preceding her in death. When he passed away, a half-dozen notes and postcards tied up in red ribbon were discovered hidden inside his shotgun case. Liz had addressed the letters to her father's office in downtown Summerland.

Liz and Quentin had landed in Key Largo. Quentin had found work repairing marine engines. They rented a tiny house with a view of Tarpon Basin, and within a year Liz was pregnant. She loved the place, the water, the light, the fresh ocean scents. They were saving for a boat.

The tone of the letters was restrained, apologetic, almost formal. They seemed to be written with the knowledge that one day Abigail would read them and grade them by her severe standards. Then abruptly the letters ceased.

“They died in a car crash,” I told Mona. “Quentin and Liz.”

She nodded solemnly as if that was one option she'd considered.

“I'd just been born and they were hurrying back from the hospital to Key Largo. Drunk driver ran them off the road. Somehow I survived.”

She was silent for a few moments, her nails against the console tapping out some grim Morse code.

“You remind me of her.”

“Abigail?”

She nodded.

“There's something going on inside—hard, stubborn parts grinding against each other. Sand in your gears. I don't know. Gruff on the outside, but something else underneath. Something you work hard to keep hidden.”

“You got a license to do this kind of thing?”

She kneeled down beside me, reached out, and ran a fingertip along the line of my jaw, from hinge to tip.

“The bone structure, too. You're one of them.”

“And luckily you're not.”

She smiled.

“Luckily I'm not.” Then the smile weakened. “An interloper, that's me. A stray brought in from the rain.”

“What do you know about your own parents?”

“Not a damn thing. Five foster families, Tampa, St. Pete, Bradenton. I was nine when Christine Milligan showed up and took me away. Two years after I had moved in with John and her, I'd just turned eleven, Christine decided she couldn't hack the parent thing. One night she tucked me in, pecked me on the forehead, wished me luck, and flew. From that point, Dad went through the motions, but it was Grandmother who raised me.”

“She treat you any better than Liz?”

“Yeah, I got a long leash. She let me screw up. Just stood back and gave me something she hadn't been able to give your mother.”

“Got to love her for that.”

Her eyes muddied and she blinked them clear, then straightened her shoulders, sniffed, and backhanded her nose.

“She wasn't a bad woman. She had her own demons. Grew up in the shadow of domineering men. Those old pioneer roughnecks. Badasses.”

“Lots of demons in this family,” I said.

“I think that's why your grandfather never got in touch with the couple who raised you. He didn't want Abigail to botch another generation.”

She eased down and settled onto the deck beside me. She brought her hip flush with mine. I inhaled her aroma again, fresh plums, wood smoke, leather baking in the sun, a jasmine bloom breaking open. She turned her face to me.

I reached up and ran a finger around the rim of her right ear, tucked away a strand of hair that had fallen across her cheek. My touch closed her eyes.

When I kissed her, Mona held back. Lips so indifferent I almost drew away. But a second or two later, her mouth warmed and softened and I felt her rise from somewhere distant and wintry, as though she'd been hibernating and was shaking free of that slumber, coming into my arms with a slow, drowsy need and a ravenous hunger.

She planted her hand flat against my chest as if feeling for my heartbeat or else preparing to shove me away.

As our kiss deepened, the hand coasted down my shirt, button by button. At my waist, she wormed a finger inside the fabric and circled in on my navel. She broke away from the kiss, drew a long gasp, smiled at my bewilderment, then brought her lips to mine again with new frankness. Her fingertip still skimmed the edges of my navel.

It felt like more than simple physical exploration. Something instinctive. As if driven by impulse, Mona was harkening back to the primal situation. Invoking the umbilical, the broken cord. The scar that marked the severed union between mother and child, one generation and the next, the closest bond two people ever have, and the endless exile that follows.

As I was easing her back onto the deck, Holland cleared his throat and broke us apart.

He was in the doorway of the wheelhouse, camera in hand. But he managed, with some new show of restraint, not to snap us in our intimacy.

“Sorry, kids,” he said. “But Uncle Fuck-up is trying to fix things. You better see this. He's pretty trashed.”

Before I stood, I looked into Mona's eyes. Neither Bates nor Milligan, but more than their match in certain ways. A woman who easily could have surrendered long ago to the poisonous rivalries, the lessons in isolation at the core of that family, but somewhere she'd overcome, and had even managed to win for herself the childhood Abigail had not granted my mother.

When we made it outside and saw what was unfolding, I cursed and hammered a fist against the rail. Milligan was in one of the kayaks and was paddling at a leisurely clip, heading east into the open bay, closing in on the spot where the killer had instructed me to go.

Mona called out to him, then called again and another time, her voice lost in the wind. Milligan continued to paddle.

We hustled down to the lower deck. Rusty was there, hands cupped to her mouth, bellowing his name, commanding him to turn around. Holland took a picture of John, focusing his long lens.

Only Annette stayed inside, typing away on her laptop.

“Here we go,” Holland said. “Party time.”

He offered me the telephoto lens, but I waved it off. I could already make out the yellow bass boat idling from the mouth of the distant creek.

 

 

 

 

I ducked back into the salon, found the walkie-talkie on the bar, thumbed the call button, then thumbed it again.

Annette looked up from her typing, saw what I was doing, and hastily settled her fingers on the keys to get it all down as it was unfolding.

In my hand, the radio crackled and the woman spoke.

“Yes.” Same dispassionate tone. Neither question nor statement, just a dead one-syllable word floating through the ether.

“Leave him alone. He's not the one you want.”

“This is Thorn I'm talking to?”

“That's right. Turn your boat around and wait. When he's safely back on board, I'll meet you out there.”

Rusty had opened the door and was listening to my speech. She shook her head firmly. No way was she going to allow me to put myself in that kind of jeopardy, not on her watch.

“I give you my word,” I said into the mike, staring hard at Rusty. “I'll be there. Let him turn around and come back, I'll give you what you want.”

“How good is your word?” It was more challenge than question.

“You'll have to trust me.”

There was a long silence. I could hear the light swells sloshing against the hull, the purr of the generator turning gasoline into fluorescent light and chilly air.

When she came back, her voice was sharp.

“Your word any better than Abigail Bates's?”

“You drowned her, didn't you? You killed that old woman.”

Rusty's shoulders slumped. She stared down at the carpet, shaking her head in helpless disbelief.

“Why'd you do it? Who hired you? What's your name, goddammit?” I didn't expect answers. I wanted to goad her, get that anger to foam up again. I wanted her, most of all, to focus on me. “What's wrong? You afraid to talk? What're you worried about? You're not too smart, are you? Afraid to engage with me, afraid I'll confuse you, manipulate you?”

“You got it wrong,” she said, resuming her patient tone.

“I don't think so. I think you're the one who's got it wrong. You've lost your way. Nobody drowns an eighty-six-year-old woman. Nobody with a soul. Nobody human.”

“There,” she said. “Now you're getting it.”

A flash of chilly sweat lit up my skin, and in the next moment my cotton shirt was glued to my back.

This woman was no wild-eyed maniac. That's what she was telling me. No emotional zombie, no flailing crazy. She was like me, like Rusty and the rest of us, except for one small defect: Somewhere along the way she'd stopped giving a shit. And she recognized the fact, knew how far she'd drifted. There was discipline in her actions, self-control. She wasn't the kind to be rattled or misdirected. This wasn't the brash and reckless adversary I'd been imagining and secretly hoping for.

Through the back window I watched the bass boat cruising slowly toward John Milligan's kayak. Maybe a hundred yards separated them.

Mona pushed through the door and saw me holding the walkie-talkie.

“Can she hear?” Mona whispered.

“No.”

“Dad's got a gun.”

“What?”

“He takes it with him everywhere. A Beretta automatic, like Abigail's.”

“You're sure?”

“He was carrying it today when we were fishing. Holster under his arm. That's why he kept his Windbreaker on the whole day.”

“Oh, great,” Rusty said. “Fucking wonderful.”

“Why didn't you tell me that before? You didn't think it was relevant?”

“It honestly slipped my mind.”

“So is there anything else you haven't shared?”

Mona flinched, then glanced back out the window at her father paddling steadily toward the approaching boat.

“He's an excellent marksman,” she said. “Goes to the range every weekend. He's trying to save us. I didn't know he had it in him. Risking his life to save us.”

I wasn't so sure that's what was happening, but I let it slide. I wasn't certain of anyone's motives anymore. Not even my own.

In the stiff silence, Mona's gaze drifted back to me for a moment, and the hurt I'd given her was clear. The flush in her cheeks radiated upward into her hairline, and her ears were glowing with warmth as if she'd been bitch-slapped by some charmer who'd lured her close with sweet talk just to get a clear crack at her.

I told her I was sorry, and after a moment she nodded.

I pressed the call button again. When the woman didn't respond, I spoke in a loud, unmistakable voice: “Let him go and I'll be there in ten minutes.”

There was no response for several moments. The bass boat continued to close in on the kayak. They were about fifty yards apart. A good marksman would have had a high-percentage shot by then.

“Maybe I'll take all of you down,” the woman said. “Just to be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

There was no response.

“Sure of what?”

The radio clicked on, then a second or two of static ended with another click, as if the woman had been about to reply but caught herself.

I smacked the walkie-talkie onto the bar and headed to the door.

Rusty blocked me, lifted both hands.

“No, Thorn. Absolutely not.”

I drew a breath, tried for a coherent sentence, though the whistle shrieking in my head made that nearly impossible.

“I'm getting the other kayak and paddling out there.”

“Why? Are you suicidal?”

“I have to, Rusty.”

“Thorn, goddammit. For once in your life think it through.”

I reached for the doorknob and she steered my arm away.

“John put himself in the middle of this. Going off halfcocked apparently runs in your family, Thorn. But here's how it is. For some reason she wants you, which makes you our bargaining chip. Think about it. You rush out there, she shoots you, the rest of us are out of options.”

I brushed past her, went through the doorway and into a hard gust. As the wind direction changed, it had repositioned the Mothership on the axis of our anchor line, swinging our stern closer by thirty yards to John's kayak.

Out in the bay the bass boat revved, then the woman slammed it into gear, gunned it, and steered straight for John. I grabbed the camera from Holland's grasp and focused the lens tight on the action. Ten yards away from MiUigan, she swung to the right and cut the motor, slewing sideways toward the bow of his kayak.

I saw the black flicker of the automatic in John's right hand, and the wake from her boat swelling under him, jostling his aim.

“Why the fuck doesn't he shoot?” Holland said.

I watched as the woman lifted her own weapon, what looked like a bulky .45, and held it steady on John. She was shielded by the boat's console, exposing only her head above that pulpit of fiberglass. They were twenty feet apart, the choppy water dying out around them.

Then her lips moved. She was speaking to John, and I watched as he replied. I couldn't read their expressions, could not decode the tension in their stances. The lens flattened all that. They could be negotiating, or arguing, or greeting each other with the warmth of lovers after a long separation. They held their pistols in place and conversed, a back-and-forth that lasted half a minute. In the middle of their conversation a cormorant sailed into the frame and flopped onto the water between them and began to paddle toward the kayak. Glossy black bird, a notorious moocher looking for scraps.