Home Repair Is Homicide - Crawlspace Part 16

Ouch. No more Wild Turkey for you, missy.

But even being stone-cold sober wouldn't make those branches any st.u.r.dier. They were as brittle as old bones.

Like yours will be ... She struggled up, bolts of panic invading her at the thought that any minute now, he would return.

For one thing, as Sam had pointed out, that tide was moving. On its way out now, but when it came back in, the water would be too deep for Randy to slog through it.

And he must know that, too, that he had only a window of opportunity, that the water would be too ...

Squinting into the darkness, she spotted a thin, pale line running across the water to the sh.o.r.e. A rope. She hadn't noticed it earlier, but now she saw one end of it was tied to a cleat on the boat's front end. So if she untied it ...

He wouldn't be able to follow it back. She scrambled back up onto the rail, inched along until she was nearly to the rope. The boat's rocking threatened to push her off the narrow board she perched on, as with stiff, numb fingers she fumbled at the knot, tearing at the rope looped tightly and, worse, so unfamiliarly in the metal cleat.

The knot didn't budge. Carolyn kept at it, nearly weeping with frustration. How, how were you supposed to untie this thing? She fought with the loose end, pulling and pus.h.i.+ng it.

Still the knot held, and though she went on battling it, in her heart Carolyn Rathbone began to know it was hopeless. That she hadn't quite yet joined the company of girls in graves but that she would, soon.

That it was only a matter of time.

TRUDGING ALONG THE GRAVEL ROAD IN THE DARK, JAKE tried to keep up with Bella, who had apparently been running marathons and taking fitness cla.s.ses from Arnold Schwarzenegger when not busy scouring the kitchen sink.

"Just ... wait up a minute, will you?"

Bella turned impatiently. "Low tide," she said quietly, "is nearly over. It's just about finished running out."

And after that, the tide would begin coming in again ... . It had taken longer than Jake expected to get here, up thirty miles of Route 1 in the fog.

Which was now clearing. "So if we want to get there-" Bella went on.

"Yes, yes, we want to get there," Jake interrupted. But she also wanted enough strength left to lift a weapon, if necessary.

"How much farther, do you think?" she asked, then stumbled headlong over a hunk of driftwood onto a stony beach.

"Shh," said Bella. They'd emerged suddenly from the trees. Jake saw the sky opening up overhead, and the sharp scent of the evergreens dissolved all at once into the smell of the sea.

"Now what?" The sky was nearly clear, but mist still lay along the beach and on the water's surface. Behind them, droplets pattered from the branches, the fir boughs rustling and sighing.

Suddenly the fog's curtain parted at ground level. Islands appeared, their sh.o.r.elines dark edges of rocks and seaweed. Jake crept up beside Bella.

The sandbar should be showing now, a trail leading to Digby Island. But there wasn't one, only dark water. "Are you sure this is the place?"

"Oh, yes." Bella began walking again, striding away down the narrow strip of beach. "But there's no sandbar, is there?"

Jake followed. "So, what happened? It didn't just-"

Disappear. They didn't do that, did they? It was indeed low tide; most of the beach was covered in slippery, slimy rockweed so treacherous that they had to pick their way.

Through the weed mats, huge granite slabs stuck up, jagged obstructions alternating with smooth, gleaming platforms that were even more dangerous. Slip on one of them, crack your skull on another, and bingo, that's all she wrote.

"Look." Jake followed Bella's gesture to where a patch of paler sand spread out. Overhead, the moon pushed through, making the patch glimmer.

It was a sandbar. They'd just missed seeing it at first. But once spotted in the gloom, it was as clear as a marked trail.

Small, chaotic waves broke on it, lacy white. Jake lurched forward excitedly toward what looked to be easy walking, unbroken by rocks or weeds. Maybe this wasn't going to be such a difficult project after- "Wait." Bella's hand stopped her. "Here's what we should do."

What? Jake thought, irritated. You're going to tell me- Bella went on quietly. "We make sure they're out there. We try to make sure they're okay. We use your cell to call Bob Arnold. Then we sit tight and let the people who do this kind of thing for a living take charge of it." She eyed Jake calmly. "All right? Because we should agree in advance on what we're doing."

Which made sense. "Well ..." Jake began uncertainly. What she wanted to do was charge out there, guns a-blazin.'

Well, one gun, anyway. Biting her lip, she stared across the sandbar. If he was here, Randy Dodd had been smart. But just as he had when he got the speeding ticket Chip Hahn had found, Randy had made a mistake.

Two mistakes, really: he'd left a blank notebook page in the Dodd House, not a map but the ghost of one, brought to life again by Bella when for once in her life she'd spread some dirt instead of cleaning it up.

And you took my son, she thought at him, staring into the night. That was your biggest mistake.

"Fine," she said. "But if they're not okay, then we're going to plan B, and I'll be in charge of it."

With that, she took a step forward, tripped over a chunk of driftwood, and fell headlong onto the stones again. The satchel she carried, with her phone and a flashlight in it, flew from her hand, landing with a tinkling crash.

The flashlight, she thought as her cheek smacked hard stone. But it wasn't the flashlight smas.h.i.+ng, she realized in the next moment; it was the phone. Meanwhile ...

Pus.h.i.+ng up painfully from the wet, cold rocks, she grabbed the cell phone and raised her head just in time to see the flashlight rolling toward the water. "Bella ..."

But Bella was busy grabbing up the satchel with one hand and Jake's arm with the other. "Come on," she hissed. "If he's nearby he could've heard that."

The flashlight kept rolling, a small dark tube moving down the sharp slope to where the waves lapped. But not all the way-a rock stuck up from the water's edge.

The flashlight smacked the rock with a small, sharp click and went on, its yellow beam like an arrow s.h.i.+ning directly at the sandbar.

Or if you looked at it from Randy Dodd's point of view, at Jake and Bella.

"Get it," Jake whispered, struggling to rise. But something was stopping her, something around her ankle. It burned Bella scampered down the beach, crouched swiftly, s.n.a.t.c.hed the flashlight up, and snapped it off in one quick motion. But too late; an answering light appeared on the far sh.o.r.e of one of the islands out there.

Bobbing and bouncing, it proceeded swiftly toward the pale, s.h.i.+ning path of the moonlit sandbar, then snapped off. A dark shape where it had been started across the bar toward them.

"Quick," said Bella, tugging at Jake's arm. "Get up."

But whatever was tight around Jake's leg wouldn't let go. She twisted to try getting a glimpse of it, then wished very hard that she hadn't, because the driftwood she'd tripped over wasn't merely a chunk, she realized now.

It was an entire waterlogged tree trunk. Washed up here by the tide, it must have been leaning precariously, propped up on a thin stick of branch now lying a few feet away.

And when Jake tripped over the branch, she'd broken it, so the tree trunk had rolled right onto her ankle. Sitting up, she strained forward, pus.h.i.+ng with both hands against the ma.s.sive old tree's dead white corpse.

It didn't budge. The shape across the water bobbed nearer. Now it was halfway across. "Bella, I can't-"

Bella bent beside her, saw the problem. "Here. Dig. Do it fast."

She shoved the cup top from their thermos bottle into Jake's hands, crouched, and began digging furiously herself. Jake gouged sand and pebbles from around her trapped ankle, flung them away, and dug up the next cupful.

A depression formed. But there was her whole foot remaining to be unearthed... . It struck her that this was serious.

"Go," she said, thinking about the gun in her sweater. In reply, Bella just grabbed Jake's pants leg and pulled.

But the chunk of tree might as well have been an anchor, as meanwhile a new sound came from the sandbar: boots, releasing one after another from each wet step with an awful sucking sound.

A low, scrubby screen of sea gra.s.s still hid them from that direction, but soon whoever was approaching would reach it. Bella gazed around wildly, then s.n.a.t.c.hed up an old plank, part of some dock or collapsed boat shed that had floated or blown here.

It was about six feet long and not st.u.r.dy-looking at all, but it was something. She shoved one end under the tree trunk. "Lean back. Out of the way ..."

Then she jumped on the other end with both feet. The tree trunk lurched up a scant inch.

"Now," Bella said urgently as Jake scrambled back, kicking with one foot and dragging the other. The instant her ankle was free, the old board snapped, hurling Bella backward and letting the tree trunk fall again.

Backpedaling, Bella reached out and snagged Jake's collar as the ma.s.sive, waterlogged thing slammed down with a thud. Half crawling, Jake let herself be hauled along across the wet stones toward the relative shelter of the trees.

Scooting into the brush, they hustled back from the exposed beach area until Jake fell into a mucky depression full of wet leaves and slimy washed-up ma.s.ses of rotted seaweed.

"Shh," Bella whispered, crawling into the depression, too.

"Get down," Jake whispered, yanking Bella's sleeve. Through a scrim of weeds between the beach and the trees, they watched as a man stepped from the sandbar onto the beach itself.

He stopped, peering around, then spotted the tree trunk and hurried toward it. Leaning down to examine it, he picked up half the broken plank, swung it experimentally a couple of times, and flung it away.

Jake felt a moment of relief at the thought that she wasn't about to be bludgeoned to death with a hunk of wood. But then- Then she saw what was in his other hand: an iron boat hook. The better to bash you with, my dear ...

"Bella?" But Bella didn't reply, staring at the man who now came closer, following their footprints. Swinging the boat hook.

Jake dug in her sweater pocket. She hadn't wanted to shoot Randy at all, since if she did he might not be able to lead them to Sam and Carolyn.

Now, though, things were really getting serious. She put her hand in her pocket.

No gun. Disbelief flooded her. She'd put it there, and she hadn't taken it out, so- Fifty yards distant, Randy Dodd paused, looking down at his feet. Seeing something. Picking it up, he peered around slowly, tucked it into a pocket of whatever it was that he was wearing. An army jacket, it looked like.

The .32, she realized. It must've fallen from her own pocket when the tree trunk hit her or when she was writhing on the sand, trying to get free.

And now Randy Dodd had it.

He began walking toward them again, taking his time, making sure he didn't lose sight of the footprints they'd left for him. He had a slight limp but it didn't impede his progress. Still swinging the boat hook, he reached the far edge of the sea-gra.s.s meadow.

Close enough now for Jake to see the confident smile on his face. Confidence, mingled with antic.i.p.ation ... But then a sound came suddenly from above and behind them, a low, guttural roar that rose very fast to a sharp whap-whap-whap!

It was a helicopter. Coast Guard, probably; the minute the sky cleared, they'd have begun sending out search crews by water and air.

Bob would've told them about the map tracing from the Dodd House even if he put little confidence in it himself.

But Digby Island was on the Canadian side of the border, and like it or not, the Coasties weren't going to provoke an incident. They couldn't chase bad guys to Canada any more than Los Angeles cops, say, could follow their own suspects into Mexico.

Randy's shape vanished as he crouched by some boulders at the water's edge. From above, motionless, he would seem to be one of them and nothing more, or so he obviously hoped.

Still, Jake's heart lifted hopefully as the craft came in low. She didn't know where the international line was, precisely, but they obviously did, and for an exultant moment it seemed they were coming straight at her, wind from the copter's rotors ruffling the water and searchlights crisscrossing on it.

Minutes pa.s.sed, and then more of them, as the craft swept back and forth. But it never came near Digby. And even if it had, an air search at night on the water was no guarantee of anything being found.

The strobing lights stabbed the night again and again. But they showed nothing but waves and the roiling, river-like rush of the racing currents. At last the near-deafening sound faded, the helicopter and its hoped-for salvation whapping away back toward the west.

Staring, Jake couldn't believe it. Come back, she wanted to shout, but of course she couldn't; Randy still had that gun. Once the aircraft was gone, he resumed his progress, slapping the boat hook he still carried into the palm of his free hand.

Something about the helicopter must've spooked him, though, because after only a few more steps he stopped again. Then he turned and went back toward the sh.o.r.e and the sandbar he'd come from, as if he'd suddenly thought of something.

As if, pleasurable as it might've been, he'd realized that it just wasn't worth it to find them and kill them. Watching him go, Bella let her breath out. "Now what?"

Jake s.h.i.+fted painfully. "I don't know. I guess he must think the he li copter might come back."

Another thought p.r.i.c.kled at the edge of her mind, but she was too cold, scared, and hurting to be able to concentrate on it. "He's got my gun. And I think my ankle is sprained."

Also, they were sitting in a muck pit. "Let's try to get out of here," she said, feeling heartsick. Because the helicopter had probably saved their lives by stopping Randy's search for them, but it hadn't done anything for Sam.

In fact, for him it had probably made things worse, because now Randy knew people were after him, and that they had at least a general idea of where he might be.

Not that we've helped in that department, either, Jake told herself bitterly as she and Bella clambered up the side of the gunk-filled hole in the beach. With the copter gone, the night felt empty and desolate. The moon shone down coldly, turning the beach to a silvery sheet.

The car was half a mile away and no more help was coming anytime soon; not for them, not for Sam or for Carolyn Rathbone. Or for Chip Hahn, wherever the h.e.l.l he'd gotten to.

Jake pulled her smashed phone out and tried it. But nothing happened when she opened it. She hurled it away. Sam, I'm ...

"Sorry," she began aloud. "Sorry, sorry ..."

But Bella didn't let her finish. "If your ankle really is sprained, and not broken ..."

"Oh, there's a happy thought," said Jake as regret went on flooding her. In retrospect she could think of a dozen things she should have done differently, but now it was too late for any of them.

"If it's only sprained, then what's good for it is a soak in cold water."

Bella wiped her muck-smeared hands on the front of her jacket. Jake put her weight testingly on her bad foot. The result was not good in either case.

"Bella, you've got to get to the car. Get out of here and get help, send them ..."

Bella just looked at her. "He knows we are here and he knows we're not just kids looking for an isolated place to park, have a party. To drink and fool around, and so on."

"Yes, I realize that. He found my gun, heard the helicopter. He knows pretty soon people will be back, that even though they didn't find him this time ..."

"Daylight will come," Bella finished for her. "He needs to be away before then. And if he has Sam and that girl-"

She didn't need to finish. Two hostages would only slow him down. Bella bent and seized Jake's arm. "Just come on along with me now. You need to soak that ankle."

Jake let herself be grabbed hold of and urged forward. If she didn't, she thought she might just sit again. "Bella, I'm not sure I-"

"We've got to." Supporting most of Jake's weight, Bella put her shoulder under Jake's arm and took a step, and then another.