Rigged for Murder (Windjammer Mystery Series) (28 page)

“Where’d she go?” John pressed.

“She suddenly veered off and headed east away from the island.”

“Where are your binoculars?”

“Next to the wheel.”

John darted into the wheelhouse and grabbed them. He began scanning the ocean east of the island. Suddenly he stopped. “There she is, and she’s way out there. I only see one person aboard.” He nodded urgently toward Paulie’s boat. “Is your boat faster than his?”

“Do lobsters crawl into traps?”

“Get over here, Rob,” John shouted. “Get us out there as fast as you can, Trudeau.”

Trudeau was already at the wheel, and as soon as Rob’s feet hit the deck, he maneuvered his boat out through the buoys toward open water.

B
rie tried to hop toward the wheelhouse, but with her hands and feet taped together, she couldn’t keep her balance on the pitching deck and fell, landing hard on her right side. She sat up and, turning her back to the wheel, began scooting along the deck. She had to get to the radio and send a Mayday. She could see Anna beginning to stir, and she pushed herself desperately along the deck. Her hands and feet were starting to tingle from lack of circulation, and her head throbbed where Anna had hit her with the gaff. The warm stream of blood she’d felt running down from the wound was starting to dry. She had gotten to the wall of the wheel-house and pushed herself to her feet. But as she hopped toward the console that held the radio, she heard a sound behind her. Brie spun and took one more jump backwards. Her hands found the console. As Anna took hold of her, Brie grabbed the throttle and gave it a shove, sending the boat surging forward.

Anna flung her across the deck so viciously that Brie felt like a rag doll being slammed to the floor by an angry child. Her head whipped back as she fell and hit the rail. When her vision cleared Anna was standing over her once again, her mouth bleeding profusely, one of her front teeth missing.

But then something else got Brie’s attention, and it made her wonder if she were already dead. Her dad was standing a few feet behind Anna. She saw him there, clear as day, and he seemed to be saying something to her.

“Well, this
has
been fun,” Anna jeered, starting to pull Brie to her feet.

Brie wriggled away from her, crabbing her way sideways and trying to focus on her dad—trying to hear what he was saying.

“It’s always more exciting when someone puts up a good fight.” Her voice had descended to a throaty tremor. “It was actually quite a turn-on the night I killed Pete. He struggled just enough to make it interesting.”

Brie could hear her dad now. She could hear him clearly. He was saying,
Remember your strength, Brie. Remember your strength.
She flashed back to her childhood. She was wrestling with her brother, and her dad was standing nearby refereeing, and he was saying, “Remember your strength, Brie. Use your legs.”

Anna had her halfway to her feet now and was forcing her over the rail when a large swell lifted the bow of the boat up. Brie fell backwards onto the deck as Anna lurched forward, her upper body thrown across the rail directly above Brie’s head. Brie reacted instantly. Pulling her knees into her chest, she shot them up under Anna’s hips in one lightning move and thrust with every ounce of strength she could summon. Anna, caught off guard and off balance, plunged headfirst over the rail into the sea. A moment later Brie felt a sickening thud under the boat and knew that Anna had hit the propeller.

Brie knelt up and looked aft in time to see a reddish pool fading away astern. In the distance she saw a boat rapidly approaching on the same heading.

Just Jake
plowed forward, pilotless. Brie pulled herself to her feet and hopped around to face forward. What she saw nearly stopped her heart. The boat was on a collision course with a small island that was not much more than a big pile of rock. As she desperately hopped forward, using the rail for support, she assessed her choices. There were only two, and they were both bleak: stay aboard and be killed by the impact, or jump overboard and go straight to the bottom with her pockets full of lead.

The increased roar of a motor made her glance over her shoulder. The other boat had almost caught up. Brie saw Trudeau driving and John and Rob poised next to the port rail. The island loomed so close. Brie took two big jumps toward the wheel but, losing her balance, fell to the deck. Trudeau’s boat was off the stern now, and a moment more brought it alongside.

In the surreal way that things phase into slow motion during a crisis, Brie saw John climb up on the gunwale of Trudeau’s boat and jump. A second later Trudeau veered his boat sharply away to starboard. John landed on the deck and rolled once before springing to his feet. He ran for the wheelhouse, praying there were no submerged ledges, and swung the wheel so hard to starboard that the boat laid all the way over on her side, veering off the collision course no more than fifteen feet from shore and sending a large bow wave crashing over the rocks.

John dropped the engine out of gear and went back to Brie. He untaped her hands and feet, picked her up in his arms and carried her to the stern of the boat. She laid her battered head against his shoulder, trying to absorb a little of his strength. He sat down on the stern locker, still cradling her in his arms.

“I saw my dad. He was here.”

“It’s okay, Brie. It’s over now. It’s okay.”

“Thanks, John,” she whispered. She left her head on his shoulder, feeling at that moment as if she might just leave it there forever.

“Any time, Brie,” he murmured softly.

T
RUDEAU SWUNG HIS BOAT back alongside the
Just Jake
, and Rob came aboard. He took the wheel and headed them back toward Lobsterman’s Cove, leaving John free to tend to Brie. Trudeau went back to search the waters for any sign of Anna’s body, but no trace of her was ever found.

John nestled Brie down on the deck next to the locker and went forward to locate the first aid kit he knew Anna would have aboard. He knelt next to Brie, cleaned the blood off her face and checked the head wound.

“She was the most dangerous kind of psychotic,” Brie said, wincing as John touched her head. “A really smart one.”

“I know,” John said. He pressed a thick pad of gauze against the wound. “I think you may need a few stitches, Brie. The Coast Guard should be able to take care of you, or else Scott and I are both trained in first aid.”

“I trust you both,” Brie murmured. The adrenaline rush had subsided, and she was beginning to feel the first cloying fingers of exhaustion.

As they motored toward the southern end of the island, Rob saw the Coast Guard boat approaching and yelled back to let John know.

“I’m glad they’re early. I can’t wait to weigh anchor.”

“Me either,” said Brie. “I’m ready for a change of scene.”

“I’ll bet.”

John sat down next to her in the sun and put an arm around her. Pulling her knees up, Brie curled into him, laying her head on his shoulder and trying not to focus on the pain.

Rob pulled up to an empty dock across from the Coast Guard boat and secured the bow and stern lines. “I’ll go talk to them, Captain,” he said.

“Tell them Brie needs first aid.”

In minutes three Coast Guardsmen returned with Rob. One of them was carrying a medical kit, and he climbed aboard. “Hey, how’re you doing?” he asked gently, squatting down next to Brie.

“Really happy to be alive,” Brie said.

“That’s the spirit,” he said. He turned to John. “I can take over here, if you want.”

“You okay, Brie?” John asked.

“I’m fine. You give them the facts and tell them I’ll meet with the police to file a report and turn over the pictures I shot of the crime scene as soon as we get back to the mainland. Just find out where they’re bringing the bodies.”

“Will do.”

John stood up and scanned the seas beyond the cove for Trudeau’s boat. He wanted to thank Jack, but there was no sign of him. John spotted Paulie Tillman mooring his boat and hailed him. “Thanks for your help, Paulie,” he called out. Paulie waved his four-fingered hand in acknowledgement. John and Rob walked off the dock and up toward Fred’s store with the other two Coast Guardsmen to collect the bodies.

G
eorge served lunch on the deck of the
Maine Wind
before they got underway. There were lots of questions for Brie and lots of speculation about the unknowns of the case.

“Why do you suppose Tim came on the cruise?” Howard asked. “Do you think he meant to harm Pete?”

“I think maybe it was just the opposite,” Brie said. “I think he may have come aboard to forgive him. Remember, he was heading for Alaska. I believe he wanted to lay the memory of Madie and the climbing accident to rest at last, and I think forgiving Pete was part of that. And then we ended up here, where she died. That must have been hard for him. When I saw him up on the bluffs yesterday, I think he was saying goodbye to her.”

“You know what I can’t get over?” George asked Brie when they had a moment alone after lunch.

“What, George?”

“It’s the fight Pete and I had the night he died. If he’d let me get the wood out of the hold that night, I would have found Anna hiding there, and Pete would be alive today.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she would have added you to her list. Don’t forget, George, she was a killer on a mission.”

Brie walked over to the rail and looked toward the village. She thought about fate and chance occurrences. Did things happen by design, part of a sometimes-cruel plan, or were they random, like a hand of cards? All she knew was that from the same deck, both death and hope had been dealt. Pete and Tim had been cast, like unsuspecting fish, into Anna’s net, and Brie had been pitted in mortal combat against her. This time, though, Brie could see her foe—could change the outcome. And in that fierce struggle she’d saved more than her own life—she’d rescued her
self
. She could now choose to stay or to go back. It was no longer about running away.

A
t one o’clock DuLac gave the order to raise sail for breaking out the anchor. Brie was still feeling dizzy, so Will carried some PFD cushions and a blanket to the stern of the ship and made a place for her on the deck, out of the wind. He helped her sit down. “I wanted to let you know I’m no longer interested in the second mate’s job—just in case you’re wondering,” he said.

“I was wondering, but I guess the thought got knocked right out of my head.”

“I’m not surprised,” Will said. “Anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to stick around home this summer and help Dad with some repairs on the house.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Will. It’ll mean a lot to him. You’re lucky to still have your dad, you know.”

“I know. And I figure he’s taken care of me long enough—it’s my turn to repay that a little.”

Will walked forward and sat down on the cabin top next to his dad. Brie saw him put an arm around Howard’s shoulders.
Well, I’ll be darned
, she thought.

As she watched, her shipmates ran up the canvas. When they began to make headway, Scott and Will took turns at the windlass cranking up the anchor. The sails filled, and she heard the now familiar groan of timber as the big schooner leaned into the wind. DuLac spun the ship’s wheel and the
Maine Wind
fell off to starboard.

They cleared the harbor, and Brie felt her heartbeat quicken as the ocean opened before them, blue with possibility. DuLac set an easterly course for the mainland. He turned the wheel over to Scott, and walked over and squatted down next to Brie.

“How’re you doing?” he asked her.

“It was a pretty good whack on the head. I guess I’m still a little at sea,” she joked. “And by the way, since I am, I’ve decided, for now anyway, maybe sea is the best place for me.”

John’s face said it all. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “In that case, prepare for a fantastic summer.”

Brie just smiled. “Aye, Captain.”

The
Maine Wind
heeled, her windward deck lifting as she picked up speed, back in her element. Brie felt the sun on her face and in her heart. Two words were written there.
Home Port
.