The Inn At Ocean's Edge Part 25

She heard someone cry out, a woman's voice. Maybe Mommy was looking for her. The twigs and leaves crunched under her feet as she headed in that direction. Something fluttered in the moonlight, and she stopped in a patch of white flowers her uncle called spurge to pick a scarf off a bush before continuing on toward the voice.

She stopped at the edge of a small clearing and watched a man struggle with a woman. In the moonlight, she saw a small girl about her own size lying on the ground with her eyes closed. Her gaze went to the adults. The man had his hands around the woman's neck, and he bent her backward until she fell to the ground.

Then he put his knee on her chest and continued to push his hands against her neck. The woman clawed at his hands, but his hands went to her head, and he gave it a funny jerk. Then she didn't fight him anymore.

He rose and turned so she saw his face and the dead fox hanging on his belt. "Uncle Paul!"

Her first inclination was to run to him. Until she saw the rage and confusion on his face. She turned and plunged back into the forest, running faster and faster. Her ribs hurt, and she wanted to stop, but she had to find Mommy.

"Rachel, come back!"

Something in his voice made her run harder. She reached her tree with its secret hiding spot and stuck the scarf in it so she could climb the tree. Her foot slipped about halfway up, and she screamed as she tumbled toward the ground. Her head struck something hard, and everything went dark.

Claire blinked and realized he was only two feet from her. The anger on his face was just like that night. Not only had he killed Jenny, but he'd murdered Luke's mother. And Rachel had seen it all.

She turned and ran for the steps to the upper deck. Maybe she could find something to defend herself up there. Her foot hit the rung of the ladder and she began to climb, but she was slow, too slow, and his strong fingers closed around her ankle.

"I'm sorry, but it has to be this way, Rachel."

She kicked out and his hand fell away. She continued to scramble up the ladder, but she had little hope of evading him.

THIRTY-NINE.

Kate sat in the sheriff's office waiting room in Machias with barely concealed impatience. A man in his thirties, eyes closed and reeking of beer, slept with his mouth open in a chair in the corner. Another man paced the floor waiting for his brother to be released from the overnight holding cell.

She rose and went to speak to the receptionist again. "Maybe I should just leave the cell phone with you. I want to be out looking for my sister." Her sister was missing, and no one seemed in a hurry.

The woman, a young thing in her twenties with a revealing top and dyed blond hair, looked up from the computer. "The sheriff said he'd be here in fifteen minutes."

"And it's been half an hour! I can't wait any longer." Kate slid the cell phone across the counter to her. "He can call me. I'm going to look for her."

As she wheeled toward the door, she saw a bulletin board covered with wanted posters. A small one in the upper-right corner leaped out at her, and she moved closer to take a look. "Who's this?"

The woman rose and tugged her short skirt down. "Claire Dellamare painted the man she supposedly saw push Jenny Bennett from the cliff."

A sick feeling lodged in the pit of Kate's stomach. It was Uncle Paul. "Call the sheriff and see where he is."

The woman rolled her eyes. "You're a bossy little thing." She picked up the phone.

Kate paced the floor, avoiding the strides of the man waiting with as much impatience as she felt. The receptionist finally put the phone down and approached her again.

"He's investigating a burglary at a gas station and won't be here for another hour. He says for you to wait for him."

"That's not going to happen. I'll be back later." She ran for the door, ignoring the shouts of the sheriff's lackey.

Maybe it was all a mistake. Claire might be remembering seeing their uncle when she was a little girl. It didn't mean he actually had her or that he'd done anything wrong. Maybe she was overreacting. Kate had to get the truth out of Mom. Out in the suns.h.i.+ne, she jogged across the street to her Volkswagen. She accelerated out of the parking lot toward her mother's house. As she drove, she dug out her cell phone and told it to call Luke.

It rang four times, then went to voice mail. "Luke, it's Kate. That guy Claire painted is our uncle Paul. I'm en route now to my mother's to see if she has any idea why Claire would have painted him. Call me when you get this." She tossed the phone into the pa.s.senger seat atop the litter of breakfast wrappers from a drive-thru.

Kate still couldn't believe her beloved uncle would do anything wrong. He'd been the steady figure all her life. There had to be an explanation.

When Kate's tires crunched in the gravel, her mother rose from working in the flower bed. As Kate got out of her vehicle, Mom pushed the hair out of her face with the back of her muddy hand. "Kate, what's wrong? You're way too pale. Do you need to go back to the doctor?"

"No, it's not that. Claire is missing."

Her mother swiped her hands down the sides of her jeans, leaving a trail of mud. "What does that mean? She ran off because of the shock?"

Kate kicked a pile of weeds out of her way. "Someone took her. I found her cell phone in the bushes, and Luke found drag marks in the sand. Her bed wasn't slept in."

Her mother fidgeted and looked away.

"You know something, Mom, don't you?" The next question wasn't something Kate even wanted to consider. "Does Uncle Paul have her?"

The sun struck her mother fully in the face, and her eyes dilated at the question before she looked down at the ground. Her mother turned toward the steps. "Of course not. Want some iced tea?"

Kate wanted to throw up. Every confirmation she needed was in her mother's evasiveness. She caught her mother's arm and pulled her around. "How can you just stand back and let Uncle Paul hurt her? She's your daughter too."

Her mother clenched her hands together. "She stopped being my daughter when Harry took her. If I thought otherwise I would have gone crazy. Anything that happens is your fault, Kate. You never should have gone to see your father. You put dangerous things in motion."

"Don't pin that on me. Someone attacked Claire before I ever went to see Dad. There's something more going on here than I understand, but I think you know exactly what it is. You have to tell me where he would have taken her."

Her mother crossed her arms over her chest. "Paul wouldn't hurt Claire. He loves you girls. He always has."

"He loved Rachel. I think he considers Claire tainted by Dad. And he's covering up something."

Her mother looked away, out over the fields of flowering blueberry bushes. "It's going to be a good blueberry year."

"Mom, stop it. You won't distract me. Claire drew a picture of the person she saw shove Jenny off the cliff. It was Uncle Paul. I know he was seeing someone on the sly. Was it Jenny?"

Her mother bent down and picked up her yard tools. "You'll have to talk to Paul yourself."

Kate took her mother by the shoulders. "Listen to me! He's going to kill Claire. Get your head out of the dirt and do something about it. You let Dad push you around, and now you're letting Uncle Paul do the same thing. Do you want Claire's blood on your hands too?"

Her mother looked away.

Kate wanted to shake her, but it wouldn't do any good. Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at it as she answered. "Luke, thank the Lord. Did you find her?"

"No. Nothing at the cave."

She closed her eyes, not sure whether to rejoice or be discouraged. At least Claire hadn't been killed and hidden in the cave. "Where are you?"

"At the marina at Summer Harbor. I thought I'd get you and we'd go back out to search."

"Look at slip fifteen. Is there a big lobster trawler there?"

After a pause, Luke said, "Nope, it's empty."

"Claire's on Uncle Paul's boat. I'll be right there." She ended the call and turned to her mother. "Where would he take her, Mom? What's his favorite area to fish?"

Her mother twisted her hands together. "Paul always looked out for us. What will become of me if he leaves me too?"

"Tell me where to look!"

Her mother took down her ponytail, then scooped it up again and corralled the loose ends. "His best lobstering is ten miles offsh.o.r.e out past Lobster Rock."

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Kate ran for her car. Storm clouds hovered out over the water. If Claire was out there, she was facing a major storm.

The cold rain drenched Claire as soon as she reached the upper deck, and she squinted through the downpour for some kind of weapon. She recognized the area. It was where she and Luke had freed the little orca. She remembered her boast to Luke about not being able to sink if she tried. Such a foolish comment. Seas like this would drown anyone.

Paul probably lived in fear that she would remember what happened to Luke's mother. And it had finally happened.

She flung open the storage compartments and reached inside. Surely he had a fillet knife or something stashed up here. Though the storm m.u.f.fled his heavy tread on the stairs, she heard the thud as each foot hit a step, and her muscles tightened. She had to get away from him.

After finding nothing in any of the compartments, she flung herself over the edge of the railing and dangled over the lower deck. Her toes wouldn't quite reach any kind of foothold, and she found it hard to see through the driving rain. Her fingers lost their purchase on the rain-slicked railing, and she began to slip. She wouldn't be able to hold on to the wet metal much longer. Her flailing legs. .h.i.t the side of the lower walls around the cabin, and she let go, sliding down the sides to land on the bottom deck.

Even with the poor visibility, he'd soon figure out she wasn't up there. The radio! She scurried into the bridge and grabbed it. "Mayday, mayday. This is Claire Dellamare, please help me. I'm being held prisoner aboard Paul Mason's boat. W-We're out in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Can you pinpoint my location? Mayday, mayday." She released the b.u.t.ton and waited, but all she heard was static. "Mayday, mayday."

A hard hand jerked the radio away from her and shoved her onto her backside. She landed on the floor and saw stars when her head banged the side of the cabin. "They know it's you. Someone heard me."

He shook her so hard her hair flopped out of its pins. "Why did you have to come back? I don't want to hurt you, Rachel, you're blood. But you give me no choice."

"Why didn't you kill me when I saw you?"

His gaze flickered. "You didn't remember anything after you hit your head. I thought we were safe, me and Mary."

Ice encased her limbs. "Mary? What does she have to do with this? Does she know you intend to kill me?" She wrenched out of his grip and fell onto the heaving deck.

His lips flattened, then he reached toward her and she crab-walked away from him. Rolling onto her stomach, she tried to regain her feet, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, then shoved her out the door into the downpour again.

It was colder now, freezing, as the rain pummeled her. She shuddered, partly from the cold and partly from fear. Though she struggled, she couldn't break his grip on her arm. The rain obscured everything more than a foot in front of her face. "They'll catch you, and you'll go to prison for the rest of your life. If you let me go, I won't report you."

He marched her to the back of the boat by the ladder, and she glimpsed the monstrous waves before his fingers released her arm. A hard shove against her back sent her flying through the air off the back of the boat. The waves rose to meet her, and she crashed into the cold water. She came up spitting salt water. She went down sliding into a trough with the next wave twenty feet up the other side of it.

She wouldn't have to try to drown here. All she had to do was tire of her up-and-down ride through the troughs. That would be all too easy in this storm. She held her breath as the next wave crashed over her head. A murky green obscured her vision. Her lungs burned with the need to breathe, and she fought her way back to the surface. She dog-paddled to meet the next wave as regret washed over her.

There would be no future with Luke. She would miss getting to know Kate better. Did her mother still love her? Claire was pretty sure she did. A mother's love didn't just evaporate, did it?

Her limbs grew numb with cold, and she thought she heard the putt-putt of Paul's boat heading away from her. She had no idea which way to even swim, but trying to keep up with him was a useless task with the roar of the storm filling her ears. Already her arms felt like heavy stones, and her calves were starting to cramp. Was this what drowning felt like?

A vision of her little orca floated in her head. She banged her hand on the water, but with this storm, he'd never hear her, even if the pod had stayed close by.

A wave broke over her head, and she inhaled water. It was cold going down but burned as well. G.o.d, do you see me? Please make this easy. I'm scared.

The verse in Isaiah she'd heard in church came to her. "Even if the mountains heave up from their anchors, and the hills quiver and shake, I will not desert you."

The struggle left her legs and arms. G.o.d had her. Though she might have regrets about the things she hadn't said or done, there was a better world waiting. She didn't have to fight this. Down, down she went into the green abyss. G.o.d would meet her here.

Her lungs burned with the need to breathe, but she couldn't make herself draw more water into her lungs. She would hold her breath as long as she could, and then she would step across the divide.

A nudge came at her leg, but it was too dark to see. A shark? Whatever it was began to lift her to the surface. She was in such a dreamy, half-conscious state that she couldn't muster the strength to look to see what was raising her to the surface.

Her head broke the waves, and she took in a big lungful of cold air. Something black and white flipped into the water beside her. The little orca! She recognized the long scar on his side. He came closer, nudging her again, until she managed to grasp his dorsal fin in her nearly lifeless hands. He propelled her through the water. Several times she lost her grip, and he came back to get her.

Something red floated on the horizon when the next wave lifted her. A buoy bonged to her right. She let go of the calf and struck out toward the buoy.

It seemed like forever before the rain began to patter to a stop, and her right knee hit something hard. She blinked. The buoy was just a few feet away. She grabbed the hard metal and climbed atop it, pulling herself closer until both arms wrapped around it.

The waves pummeled her, and it was all she could do to hang on.

FORTY.

The huge rollers lifted Luke's boat to the skies before the bow slid down into each new trough. He didn't like the beating his boat was taking, but urgency drove him on. Kate stood out in the driving rain trying to spot her uncle's boat, but so far she'd seen nothing. The Coast Guard was on the lookout too.

The reason Paul had brought her out here didn't bear thinking about. How could her own uncle have wanted to kill her?

His radio crackled into life. "Luke Rocco, you copy?" It was one of his Coast Guard friends.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the transmitter. "Rocco here, I copy."

"We have Mason in custody. No sign of Claire Dellamare onboard, though, and he denies any involvement with her."

"Have you examined the boat to see if there's any trace of her?"

"Affirmative. Nothing. But we picked up an SOS of a woman claiming to be Claire Dellamare. It was garbled, though. The boat captain who heard it thought she said she was on Mason's boat. So we're questioning Mason, and so far he's not budging in his story."

If she'd been there and wasn't now, Paul Mason had to have done something to her. Luke felt like he'd been kicked in the stomach. He signed off, then went to tell Kate the news. The rain was stopping, and the wind had begun to calm. The waves, while still very choppy, weren't the monsters they'd been when they first came out here.

Kate turned at his approach and crossed her arms over her stomach. "Tell me."

He told her what the Coast Guard said, and her stomach clenched. "I knew he had her."

"What could he have done with her? Is there somewhere out here he might have left her?"