6 Martini Regrets (20 page)

CHAPTER 38

Ethan was clear in the light from the helicopter for only a few seconds before he bent over at the waist and ran for the protection of the scrub. I thought I’d lost him and was about to turn my gun on the person coming from my right when I saw a sliver of Ethan’s body at the entrance to the tunnel. He paused, checking to see if the way was clear before he inched forward.

I’d only get one shot. I wanted him closer.

Ethan wasn’t about to do anything rash. Cautious and silent, he sidestepped his way into the tunnel, hugging the edge of the sea grapes. Big, but a country boy, Ethan knew how to move without a sound when he was stalking prey. The linebacker didn’t. The man coming from the direction of the house wasn’t used to operating outdoors, hadn’t been trained to hunt with Tully and stay quiet the way I had.

Ethan heard the linebacker and stopped moving. The crunch of leaves under a footstep and then a flash of light exploded from Ethan’s gun. The smell of gunpowder filled the air.

A scream rose in the night. The bullet, ripping through cartilage and bone and tearing into muscle, hadn’t yet destroyed life. The linebacker stumbled into view and fired as he fell. A splinter of wood dug into my cheek and I jerked sideways.

Any noise I might have made was covered by the sound of the man dying in front of me. With legs pedaling but going nowhere, he struggled for life five feet from me.

Ethan inched forward, his gun held in front of him. He turned on a flashlight and pointed it down at the man on the brick path. “Shit,” Ethan said.

On the ground but trying to get up, the man whispered hoarsely, “Help me. For god’s sake, help me.”

Ethan moved quickly. Surging forward, he stepped over the man and disappeared into the night. I had the Beretta on Ethan the whole time, but I didn’t pull the trigger. Now I had missed my chance. I bit back a curse.

He was gone. Or was he? Had he gone for help, or was he playing possum? I went over the possibilities. If Ethan had been in contact with the man chasing me, maybe Ethan knew I was nearby and was being clever, waiting in the dark for me to make a move. Was it possible for the strange men on the island to be in cell contact if there was no tower? I didn’t know.

I didn’t lower the gun. I kept it fixed on the spot where Ethan had disappeared.

My hands began shaking from tension and the weight of the weapon. Would I be able to hold them still enough to hit anything if Ethan returned? I eased my hands back towards my chest to relieve the trembling.

If Ethan had gone to get help for the man he’d shot, more people might be headed my way. Now was my only chance to get away.

I started to rise and then sank back down. Tully’s voice echoed in my head. “Don’t break cover.” One bad night he’d kept us alive with wisdom earned the hard way in Vietnam.

“Don’t break cover” was my mantra now. Frozen in place, I watched the shooter, lying there in front of me, as he died. It wasn’t an easy death. Slowly the guy’s legs stopped moving, and then his body stopped twitching. And then nothing.

Still I waited. There was no sound to help me decide if Ethan was waiting in the dark for me.

CHAPTER 39

Blood ran down my face. I licked a trickle from the corner of my mouth, a metallic taste on my tongue, and then lifted my left shoulder and dried the blood on my cheek with my shirt, afraid to lower the gun long enough to wipe it properly. Time crept by. My cramped muscles began shaking.

Two things became clear to me. First, I couldn’t stay hidden. They’d search until they found me, I was sure of that. The second thing I was positive about was Ethan wasn’t going to let me leave Dancing Lady alive. Ethan didn’t let witnesses live.

I had to come up with a plan, a way of saving myself. But what?

I could only hide as long as it was dark. Maybe not even that long. They had flashlights, and if they got lucky shining them into the jungle of vegetation, they’d discover my hiding place. Moving was risky. And if I did break cover, which way should I run? The pilot was still with the helicopter. Would he be armed? At the very least, he’d warn the others . . . tell them where I was. Could I kidnap him? Force him at gunpoint to take me away? I’d have to surprise him to make that plan work. It was too much of a long shot. So I couldn’t go left. To my right, down the path, Ethan waited.

Behind me, towards the gulf waters, was a dense wall of vegetation, followed by fifty feet of mangroves. If I could push through all of that, it would be easy enough to swim around the island to the dock and the boat that had brought us to Dancing Lady Island. Would they have left a man at the dock? Even if they hadn’t, they’d come after me as soon as they heard the engine start, and Silvio’s little boat was unlikely to be powerful enough to outrun them. I hadn’t heard a boat. But how else could they have got here? Maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention, assuming any sound of an engine was just someone cruising by.

It didn’t matter. Silvio wouldn’t leave the keys in the boat any more than I’d leave the keys in my truck for someone to steal.

I searched for other options. What if I hid in the water until a boat came by and then swam out to it? How could I make them see me in the dark? If I was close enough to call out to them, I risked being run down. Besides, there would be no boat traffic until morning, hours away.

There was still the yacht and its communication equipment.

I checked behind me and to the side, trying to wiggle farther back. If I could get out to the water and swim around the far side of the island to the west, I might be able to get to the yacht and use its radio to bring help. It would take an hour for help to come by boat from Jacaranda.

I’d only managed to wiggle about five feet back into the underbrush. I knew there was no way to get through the mangroves. Even as a child small enough to fit through tiny spaces, no matter how many times I tried, there was no way out through mangroves. And then it hit me. I wasn’t going to be able to call for help. And no one was coming to rescue us.

I settled back on my heels and thought. Improbable ideas tumbled through my mind. In the end it came down to two things, help myself or wait to die. The second thing I decided came as a revelation to me. I wasn’t leaving without Clay. Come what may, we were going together or we weren’t going at all.

Questions piled up. How many men were there? And, the question I most wanted answered, was Clay still alive? Behind me, deep in the mangrove roots, something stirred. Surprised, I gave a frightened peep of terror and then froze, expecting to see Ethan creeping back at the sound.

When nothing happened, I took a deep breath and forced myself to move. Inch by inch, I crept out of the sea grapes until I stood by the dead man. His gun lay inches from his hand. I picked it up, studying it. It was much heavier than the Beretta, but it had a silencer, and that was an advantage. I checked that his gun still had ammunition and then dropped my Beretta into the pocket of my cargo pants.

Sticking to the shadows on the right side of the dark path, I worked my way back towards the house, my heart beating so fast and hard I thought it surely would do me an injury.

CHAPTER 40

At the tennis court I hesitated for a long time. Moving out into the open was risky. Would they have left someone here in case I came back? It seemed likely, but they were two men short: the one I had shot and the one Ethan had killed.

I knelt down and waited, trying to decide what to do. At last I crept around the fenced court. Nothing happened. No one was on guard here.

I crept along the path towards the house. At the edge of the lawn I knelt down again and tried to gather my strength and courage for the dash across the grass. Twenty-five feet across that open area was the only way to get to the house.

I was still hesitating when a shape separated from a deep shadow. I raised the gun, bracing it with both hands, and waited. A flashlight flicked on and the shape became a man. Someone I didn’t know. The light swept from right to left around the perimeter of the lawn, searching. The light reached me, blinding me as I squeezed the trigger. The jolt of the gun knocked me sideways.

With a surprised “umph” the man crumpled into a lump on the grass, on top of his flashlight. I scrambled to my feet and waited for someone to appear from the house. Even with the silencer, the gun sounded loud. Surely it would bring someone.

Nothing moved and no one came running. The outline of the body glowed strangely from the illumination beneath it. Staying low and moving swiftly, I ran straight across the thick turf. Past the body on the ground, without stopping to see if he was alive or dead, but praying he wasn’t going to rise up and kill me, I ran.

At the foot of the south stairs I stopped. Remembering the squeak of runners on the decking, I slipped off my runners so they couldn’t give me away.

My eyes strained to see in the dark. Crouched in the shadows, I listened, but there was nothing except the night sounds of nature, just cicadas and tree frogs. Slowly, slowly, pausing on every step, I crept up the stairs, past the pool and up the second set of steps, expecting a head to appear over the railing at any moment. I was ready to take a shot.

Near the top of the stairs I paused, listening intently, before I lifted my head above deck level. No one stood guard. Where were they? Maybe Ethan was the only one left. No, I was sure he’d brought more than three men.

Moving quickly across the deck to the door of Liz’s room, I plastered my body against the wall. Inside or outside? A quick look. That long hall was brightly lit, making it a shooting gallery for anyone at the other end. Darkness offered cover, so outside it was.

I made my way along the gallery, stopping at each glass door, checking inside and then running silently past. When I got to the living room, I realized I’d made a mistake. I should have come upstairs at this end instead of at the south. Here, I had to pass the floor-to-ceiling windows before I could go inside.

I flattened myself against the wall, waiting for a plan to form.

“Ben knew it was you who broke in last January,” I heard Liz say. “He called me and asked me to take his orchid.” I peeked around the window frame as Liz moved into view. Blood trickled from a cut on her forehead and her body wavered like beach grass in the wind, but her voice was still defiant. “After that break-in, Ben didn’t feel it was safe to keep the black at the nursery. He figured he’d come home one day and find your men had come back.” She pointed to the black orchid, now sitting on a driftwood table. “It was out on the yacht when you and Digger came. You searched the whole damn house and didn’t think to look there.” She laughed, a harsh and bitter sound.

“Shut up,” Ethan ordered.

Her laughter was gone as quickly as it came. “Why’d you have to kill Ben?” Her voice wasn’t defiant anymore.

“An accident. Stay where you are,” Ethan said.

Liz hadn’t moved, so he was speaking to someone I couldn’t see. I hoped it was Clay.

But Liz wasn’t finished. She raised her arm and pointed at Ethan. “The last conversation I had with your mother was about you. She said you were a ‘greedy little bastard,’ just like your father.” She waved her finger. “You burned the nursery to hide the fact that you took your mother’s orchids.”

“Where’s Sherri?” Ethan asked.

I heard Clay’s voice say, “I told you. We had a blowup and she went back to Jacaranda.”

Clay was alive; it would all be fine now.

“Then who shot Devlin?” Ethan asked.

“I don’t know,” Clay said.

Ethan moved into view and raised his gun to Liz’s head. “One more time, where’s Sherri?”

The gun in my hands lifted. It was fixed on the middle of Ethan’s back. My finger tightened on the trigger. An arm snaked around my neck and lifted me off my feet. Someone swung me away from the windows like I was no more than a sack of potatoes as the gun bucked in my hands. My toes dangled above the deck, and my bullet dug harmlessly into the soffit.

“Put it down,” the man holding me said. Something hard and metal prodded my lower spine. “Now.” The barrel of a gun dug deeper into my back.

His fingers bit into my right arm, pulling it down and cutting off the circulation. “Put it down.” He pushed me forward at the waist. The big gun fell from my hand and onto the deck, and then he jerked me upright.

“Okay, over there.” He gave me a little shove away from him. “Move.”

Stepping delicately sideways so as not to surprise him in any way, I kept my eyes fixed on him.

He was a giant, older, sixties maybe, but still formidable. He picked the gun with the silencer up off the deck and motioned with his head. “Inside.”

I did as I was told, my mouth dry with fear.

Ethan was grinning with pleasure when we came through the door. “At last, the final member of our party.”

My eyes found Clay. His face was filled with yearning and regret.

I started towards him, but the man behind me grabbed my hair and pulled me back against him. “Stay.”

On the couch a man in his thirties was stretched out, a white towel soaked in blood wrapped around his thigh. He glared at me with hate in his eyes.

I almost apologized, but then I remembered that Silvio was dead and I soon would be.

The big man stepped around me and said, “This is all going wrong, boss. Let’s kill them and get out of here.”

Ethan’s eyes never left my face. “Not yet, Digger. We’ll clean this up and then we’ll go.” His gun was pointed at my chest. “You were the wild card, the one I couldn’t figure out. I knew you were there at the gas bar the minute I met you. I picked that pink flip-flop up by the water after we came up the canal. As soon as I met you, I knew it was yours and you’d been there, but I couldn’t figure out who you were buying for.”

He paused, perhaps waiting for me to respond, and then said, “I thought you might be working with Tito. He was Nina’s snitch.”

“It’s over, Ethan,” I said.

He laughed. He wasn’t frightened at all.

“You just shot one of your own men.”

“I shot him because I thought he was one of you.” Ethan made it sound like the most rational thing in the world.

“You screwed up big-time.” I was babbling like an idiot to keep him from shooting me. “There was that picture.”

His brows furrowed. “What picture?”

“The one of your Cadillac with Angie sitting in it. You shouldn’t have let Angie have her picture taken with the car. Did you know the newspapers used that picture when they reported Angie’s death?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It proves you were there and that you knew Angie.”

Confusion on his face.

“The girl at the gas bar, the same girl murdered over in Homestead, Angie Martinez. The newspaper article has a picture that shows Angie with your Caddy.”

He wasn’t indifferent now.

“That photo proves you were out near the nursery before Ben died. Her family will remember when it was taken.”

I had his full attention.

“So what?”

“Why would you go see Ben except for the black orchid?” I was trembling with anger and exhaustion. “You went back and killed Ben, and then you killed Tito because he saw it happen.”

He shrugged. “Tito’s dead. They can’t prove anything.”

“No? Shall we call the cops and see if that’s true?”

His gun rose to point squarely at my chest. “They’ll never hear about it because you’ll be dead.”

“The cops already know. I told them everything.”

Behind me, the man named Digger released me and stepped away.

“I sent an e-mail just before your guys arrived.” A silly kind of joy filled me until I remembered one brutal truth. No way was Ethan going to let me walk away from this. I was going to die. My legs could barely hold me up.

If I was frightened, Ethan looked like he’d swallowed something nasty. He was doing the calculations and trying to decide if technology was somehow going to mess him up. He didn’t see Digger edging towards the hall with his gun covering Ethan. Digger knew it was over.

Ethan was concentrating on me, working out his story. “I’ll tell them I went over to talk to Ben a week before the fire. I stopped at the gas bar and a girl asked to have a picture taken with the car. No big deal.”

“Horseshit!” Liz roared. “You never went near him before the night of the fire. He would have told me. It could only have been the day Ben died. And you never drove that thing unless you felt you were sticking it to Ben. Do you honestly think he cared that you had it?” Her chin went up and she cackled in disgust and triumph. “He called it your pink pacifier.” Liz was out of control. Perhaps she didn’t realize he was going to kill us, or maybe she just didn’t care. She surged towards him, shoulders back and up on her toes like a boxer, bouncing in outrage. “You were no good back when you were a kid and you still aren’t.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Your mother knew just what you were.”

“Don’t,” Clay said and pulled her away. Stepping in front of Liz with his hands raised, Clay said, “Get away now, Ethan, while you still can. It’s over.”

“Boss,” the injured man said, pushing himself off the couch
and trying to stand, “Digger’s going. We’ve got to get out of here too.”

Ethan turned as Digger ducked into a bedroom and disappeared.

Clay said, “Can’t you see you’ve lost, Ethan?”

Ethan said, “And so have you.” His gun exploded. A red flower of blood marred Clay’s crisp blue shirt with the cuffs turned neatly back.

My hand scrambled to my pocket and the Beretta.

The sound of the helicopter filled the room. Ethan pivoted. Gun raised, he stared down the hall in the direction of the helipad.

That’s when I shot Ethan in the back. The bullet hit him high in the left shoulder, but it didn’t take him down. He gave a startled grunt and staggered forward. And then he slowly turned on me.

I stepped backwards with the Beretta held out in front of me.

He looked down at the small exit wound on the front of his shirt. Confusion flooded his face and he said, “I thought you’d be easy.”

“You thought wrong,” I said and shot him again.

Ethan’s eyes opened wide and he stumbled backwards. Then he sat down hard on the floor and fell back against a chair, still staring at me.

I took a deep breath and tightened my finger on the trigger, ready to shoot him a third time. The front of his shirt turned red. He didn’t move.

I ran to Clay.

Clay whispered, “Sorry, Sherri . . . mistake.” Blood pulsed from his open lips. His eyes fluttered closed. His body went limp.

I lifted him in my arms. Frightening animal sounds of grief; I didn’t realize they came from me.