True Evil (65 page)

"Get out of the boat!" he bellowed. "I have the key. When you're out, I'll swim to the transom and get in."

"No!" cried Alex. "Swim away from Jamie first."

"He'll sink."

She turned and snatched up a life ring, one of the few things Tarver had left in the boat. She tossed it to him. "Put that under his arms, then swim away."

Seeing no alternative, Dr. Tarver struggled to push Jamie's body into the life ring. As he worked, Alex saw that the dark purple mark on the left side of his face was not his deformity as she had thought, but the livid swelling of a snakebite.

"All right!" Dr. Tarver shouted.

"Swim away!"

Obviously reluctant to give up his leverage, Dr. Tarver released Jamie and swam quickly toward the stern of the boat.

"Jump out!" he shouted.

Still suspicious, Alex pulled off her shoes and stripped off her jeans. Wet jeans could quickly drown you in water like this. She climbed onto the gunwale and dropped into the cold water. As she breaststroked toward Jamie, she sensed movement to her left. Dr. Tarver had not climbed into the boat. He was kicking toward Jamie again. She started to swim freestyle, but Tarver still got there first. As Alex stared in disbelief, he put his big hand on top of Jamie's head and shoved him right through the life ring, deep under the water.

"Save him now," he snarled.

Alex couldn't see Jamie, but he didn't appear to be struggling. Dr. Tarver held him under as easily as he might an infant. She thought of pulling out the screwdriver, but that was no solution. She'd never overpower Tarver face-to-face.

The answer struck her with the force of revelation. As she dove beneath the waves, her father's voice echoed in her head:
When your back's against the wall, do the unexpected. That's how you stay alive.
She kicked deeper, deeper, until she was fifteen feet below the surface. Then she opened her eyes and looked up. All she could make out was a dark blur against the gray surface. As she floated slowly upward, a tentacle of darkness swept past her eyes. She grabbed it.

It was an ankle—the smooth ankle of a boy.

Knowing that Tarver was braced for a fight, she expelled all the air from her lungs and jerked the ankle straight down, then swam toward the bottom with all her strength. With a rush of joy, she felt Jamie's body come with her. After a few seconds of kicking, she started trying to tow him laterally, but her oxygen was disappearing fast. She had to surface.

As she kicked upward, she saw a splash above, then a black shape sweeping down toward her, trailing bubbles. Switching Jamie's ankle to her left hand, she drew the screwdriver from her "bandage" and waited. When the shadow reached for her, she kicked upward and stabbed with savage force.

The tool struck something, but the shadow didn't stop. A powerful hand seized her throat. Alex flung her arm wide and stabbed from the side. An explosion of bubbles enveloped her. Tarver's big body thrashed like a wounded shark's, and then his hand let go. Hope surged through her, urging her to a final blow. She yanked back on the handle of her weapon, but the screwdriver wouldn't pull free.

Terrified that she'd lose Jamie, she released the tool and tried to swim clear, but now her air was truly gone. Lungs burning, she grabbed Jamie beneath both arms and kicked for the gray light above.

She broke through the waves and saw the boat bobbing fifteen meters away. She was shifting Jamie to a lifeguard's carry when Dr. Tarver surfaced directly in front of her. His eyes shone like those of a man in the grip of a religious vision, but something about his mouth was wrong. It sagged the way Grace's had after her stroke. Alex had no idea how to keep hold of Jamie and fight Tarver in the waves, nor had she the strength to do it. But when Tarver's hand rose from the water, it did not reach for her. The hand was open, and it moved to the side of his head, as though searching for a wound. Alex and the doctor understood the horror of his plight at the same moment: the handle of the screwdriver protruded from Tarver's left ear, where the metal shaft had been buried to the hilt.

Tarver's eyes widened as his hand closed around the handle. He seemed about to jerk the screwdriver free, but then some flicker of knowledge overrode his instinct. His hand dropped into the water, and he looked over his shoulder. With a last wild look into Alex's eyes, he turned and began swimming awkwardly toward the boat.

Alex turned in the water and started kicking toward the island. It appeared to be fifty or sixty meters away, not a difficult swim under normal conditions, but now potentially lethal. Her burning lungs and blurred vision told her she'd lost more blood than she knew. Still, she kicked on through the battering waves. Forty meters. Thirty. Her leaden limbs began to sink. Jamie's face was blue, but she could no longer kick. She knew then that they might die within a few meters of the shore.

An image of Grace rose into her mind, and then her father. Then her mother lying unconscious in the hospital.
We're the last,
she thought helplessly.
Jamie and me.
She tried to kick, but there was nothing left. She kissed Jamie's cheek and prayed for the strength to hold his head above the surface while she drowned.

Her mouth was full of water when she heard a male voice barking orders.
Kaiser?
She shoved Jamie higher, trying to kick with dead legs. Then a powerful arm swept around her, propelling them both toward shore. Someone dragged Jamie from her arms. She was dimly aware of someone counting chest compressions. A blessedly warm hand touched her face, and she opened her eyes. John Kaiser knelt above her, looking anxiously into her face.

"Can you hear me, Alex?"

She nodded.

"Is there anyone else in the boat?"

She shook her head. "Jamie," she gasped. "Is he alive?"

As if in answer, there was a fit of coughing beside her, then the sound of a boy crying.

"Disable the boat!" shouted Kaiser, getting to his feet. "Fire at the engine!"

"No," Alex cried, remembering the disconnected fuel line, which from the roar of the engines, Tarver must have reconnected.

Her cry was drowned by the crack of rifle fire.

She rose onto her elbow and tried to shout. "Stop…the fuel—"

"What?" called Kaiser, moving back to her.

But the rifle cracked again, and the stern of the fleeing Carrera erupted into flame. A figure leaped onto the starboard gunwale, but before it could jump clear, the speedboat blew apart.

Alex collapsed in the mud, rain falling steadily on her face. She tried to explain about the Pelican cases, but her voice was lost in the squawk of radios, Kaiser's barked orders, and shouts about a man in the water. The pilot of the doctor's helicopter? None of it mattered now. She rolled onto her side and saw Jamie lying beside her, staring at her with wide eyes. But it was Grace looking out through those eyes—and no longer with despair. When Jamie held out a shivering hand, Alex pulled him to her, burying his face in her chest.

She had kept her promise at last.

EPILOGUE

Two Weeks Later

Alex slowed the Corolla and told Jamie to watch for a gravel road on the left. They were driving down a deserted gray road through an endless tunnel of oak trees.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" asked Jamie.

"I think so. It wasn't that long ago that I was here. I stood with him on that big bridge we just went over."

Jamie took off his seat belt, got onto his knees on the seat, and propped his elbow on the terra-cotta jar between them.

"Careful," said Alex.

"Sorry." Jamie leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the windshield. "I think I see it. Is that a road?"

"It is. Eagle eyes."

Jamie was staring anxiously at the narrow gap in the trees. "Man, it's dark in there."

Alex slowed to a stop, then turned left onto deeply rutted gravel. "Chris told me that bad outlaws used to hide out on this road."

"When?" asked Jamie. "A long time ago? Or like now?"

The car jounced so hard that his head hit the roof.

"Ow!"

"Sorry," said Alex. "Like two hundred years ago."

"Oh." Jamie had lost all interest.

Alex almost regretted coming. The washed-out road was virtually impassable without a four-wheel drive. After fifty yards, she had to give up and park, unsure how she would ever get back to the Trace proper.

"Come on," she said. "From here we walk."

Jamie looked surprised, but he got out. Alex lifted the clay jar off the seat, locked the door, and led Jamie along the gravel road that quickly turned to sand. The air was close and muggy, and horseflies dived around their faces, thirsty for blood.

"This sucks," said Jamie. "I don't think there's anything down here."

"Have a little faith, huh? You're a tough guy."

She walked a few more yards, then stopped, listening. "Do you hear that?"

Jamie stopped, too. "What's that sound?"

Alex smiled. "Water."

She broke into a trot, and Jamie ran alongside her. A moment later they broke out of the trees into bright sunlight that flashed like diamonds from the surface of a broad, clear stream.

"Hey!" called a male voice. "We thought you'd given up."

Alex shielded her eyes against the sun and looked down the course of the stream. A hundred feet away, Chris and Ben Shepard sat on a fallen log facing a small campfire. The smell of cooking meat drifted on the wind. Jamie yelped and started sprinting across the sand. Alex followed more slowly.

By the time she reached the fire, Ben and Jamie had charged into the creek and were splashing fifty yards downstream, searching for arrowheads and dinosaur bones. Chris got up and gave her a welcoming hug.

"What's in the jar?" he asked, smiling.

She pulled off the clay lid and lifted out a bottle of chilled white wine. "My contribution," she said. "Raising the tone a little bit."

Chris laughed and took the bottle. "I hope you brought a corkscrew."

She smiled. "Screw-off cap."

He did the honors, then filled two styrofoam cups. They sat on the log a few feet apart and sipped slowly.

"How's Ben doing?" she asked at length.

Chris looked down the creek. "He has some bad nights. He's sleeping with me for now. But overall, he's doing really well."

"I'm glad."

Chris looked at her. "I think Ben knew Thora better than I did."

Alex had suspected this from the start. "Children see what's there, not what we pretend to be."

"What about Jamie?"

She smiled. "He's much better. I think he misses Will Kilmer more than he misses his father. Will makes him think of his grandfather. My dad."

Chris picked up a stick and poked the fire.

"How are
you
doing?" Alex asked.

"Physically? Or otherwise?"

"Both."

"Not too bad, physically. I'm still having some strange symptoms, but Pete Connolly thinks it's a reaction to the antidote drug. Dr. Tarver's notes mention similar reactions in some of the patients at his free clinic."

Alex had not been made privy to all the details of Dr. Tarver's work. Chris had been treated by an army doctor authorized to administer injections taken from one of the vials in Dr. Tarver's captured Pelican cases. That vial represented Chris's only hope for neutralizing the cancer-causing virus that Tarver had injected into him. FBI director Roberts had repeatedly assured her that Dr. Tarver's notes had been studied intensively by some of the best virologists in the country, and that they felt confident Chris would recover without a trace of the virus in his system. That was easy for Director Roberts to say, of course; he wasn't the one who had been injected. But Chris had been given more technical information than she, and he seemed confident that he would recover his health in time.

Alex held up her glass in a silent toast. He touched hers, and they drank.

"What about otherwise?" Alex asked softly.

"Day by day. Penn Cage has helped me a lot."

"How so?"

"He lost his wife to cancer when he was thirty-seven. Ben and Annie have become good friends. I think she helps him a lot with his ‘Why me?' issues."

"I could use some help with those sometimes," Alex confessed.

"Yeah." Chris leaned over and refilled her cup. "How's the custody thing coming?"

"Jamie's mine, no doubt. The judge upheld the clause in the original will. I'm Jamie's godmother, and the will made it clear that if both Grace and Bill died, I should raise Jamie. So that's that."

"Have you thought any more about where you're going to go?"

"The director offered me Washington again."

"As a hostage negotiator?"

Alex nodded. "My old job back."

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I thought it was. But a couple of days ago, I got another offer."

Chris's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"The SAC in New Orleans asked if I could be assigned to his office in the same capacity."

Chris raised his eyebrows. "Is John Kaiser behind that?"

She nodded. "I think Kaiser has a lot of influence down there. Anyway, there's a lot happening in New Orleans now. Crime is really out of hand."

"Sounds like a great place to raise a kid."

Alex smiled ruefully. "I know. Kaiser and Jordan live across Lake Pontchartrain, though. It's really nice over there. And it's the South, you know? I think it's time for me to come back home."

Chris was looking steadily at her. "I think you're right."

She looked back at him for a while, then reached into her pocket and brought out a small plastic case.

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's the original MiniDV of Thora and Lansing on the balcony."

Chris scowled and shook his head. "Why'd you bring it here?"

"Not to upset you. It was in Will's things, but I figure it's yours."

Chris was staring into the fire again.

"I thought you might want to pay Shane Lansing back."

Chris reached out for the tape. She handed it to him.

"Lansing's a bastard," he said. "But he's got four kids. If he makes a hell of his own life, so be it. I won't be the one to break up his family."