Ashes (34 page)

“Port is this way and starboard is that way,” she said, pointing, knowing she had a fifty percent chance of being right.

Apparently she was right, but from Gene’s cool, assessing look she guessed he wasn’t fooled. She grinned, and while he didn’t grin back, he did finally sigh. “You are the most insane woman ever. I just want to get that off my chest.”

“I know.”

He muttered that oath again, then said, “Here.” He grabbed a life jacket and handed it to her. “Put that on. God, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

She struggled to put on the jacket. “To be honest, neither can I.”

She did start to believe it, though, as the waves buffeted the boat, and what had seemed like such a solid vessel on calm seas now seemed very fragile. She had a moment when she wanted to scream, run away, go back to her house and hide under the warm covers until the bad storm went away. She sat in the cabin’s little chair, arms crossed over her torso, hands clutching her elbows.

He looked over at her. “You feeling sick?”

“Sick? No. Scared? Yes.” She felt ashamed to admit it. Waited for Gene to say it was her own fault, she shouldn’t have come out here in the first place.

But instead he said, “I know.” Took his hand off the wheel for a moment, reached out to her. She took his hand in hers, for a moment their fingers twined together, like knots in a ship’s rigging. “I am too.”

“W
hat’s going on?” Anna looked at them, at the gun. Eyes wide, the look of a woman who has just found her world turned to some terribly wrong angle, as in a horror movie when hallways stretch and stairwells disappear.

“Anna, get out.” Richard’s voice had that air of command in it, only the slightest edge of fear. Impossible to tell if it was fear for himself or Anna. “Get out, take the car, go to the Henderson’s. Stay there.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. “Richard? Sam? What are you doing?”

Sean began walking slowly toward the door, left arm around Richard’s neck, gun held to Richard’s head. It was slightly awkward, for Richard was taller than he. “This doesn’t involve you, Anna. Do as he says. Get out.”

“Tell me what’s going on!”

“He’s crazy, he might kill you, now do as I say and get out of here!” Richard said.

Sean said nothing, continued making his way toward the door. Let Richard say what he wanted; the important thing was getting him out of here. And yet... Sean stopped for a moment, looked at poor Anna standing there, frightened and bewildered. “Your husband’s a murderer, Anna,” he said. “I’m taking him out of here. I’m sorry.” And he was. For her.

She backed away from them a step or two. Sean was relieved, knew that Richard was too by the way the tension in his muscles eased a bit. He saw something in Anna's eyes, something he had never seen there before. Like a spark from a campfire flying up into the night sky.

Before he could even wonder what that spark was, she flew at them, grabbed at his right arm and pushed the gun away from her husband’s head, digging her nails into his arm. At the same time Richard broke free, began pulling Anna away toward the door, but she wouldn’t let go of Sean’s arm, kept pushing it up, the gun pointed to the ceiling. “Anna, stop it, get out of here!” Sean said, trying to free his arm without hurting her.

Anna yelled over her shoulder, “Richard, run!” Richard did turn and go, not towards the door but to the phone.

Oh Christ, if he dials 911 everything’s screwed.
Sean yanked his arm free from Anna’s grip, her nails scoring bloody tracks in his skin that he didn’t feel. He sidestepped around her and shot Richard in the back of the right thigh, just above the knee. Richard fell to the floor, several yards away from the phone. He started to crawl to the phone, dragging his leg after him.

Sean took a step toward Richard, and then Anna was at him again. “Leave him alone!” she screamed, trying to grab the gun from him.

“Let go!”

“Don’t hurt him!”

Richard almost at the phone now.
God damn it, no, can’t let this happen.

“I said let go!” He shoved Anna away from him. Shoved hard.

Too hard.

Sean watched as Anna stumbled away from him, tripped over the hearth rug and fell. Heard a crack as her head struck the riverstone fireplace. Stared in stunned disbelief as she fell to the hearth, convulsed briefly, and lay there looking small and very, very still.

He was frozen. Couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. His hand stretched out to call back the irrevocable, his skin burning where it had touched her.
Take it back, oh please I’ll do anything, just take it back.

Sean could breathe again but he still couldn’t move. Stood watching as Richard crawled over to his wife, the phone forgotten. “Anna? Anna, sweetie?” At the sound of that endearment something inside Sean seemed to die.
Say she’s all right, Richard. Tell me we can get her to a hospital, I’ll let you go, it’s over now, just say she’s not...

Richard looked up, stared at him. Said nothing but demanded an answer.

He tried to say something. Finally managed it. “I didn't —”

Richard was on his feet with the strength and speed of the bereaved, his wounded leg forgotten. Still frozen, Sean couldn’t move and Richard was on him, he was on his back on the floor with Richard pinning him down, he’d lost the gun and Richard’s hands locked around his throat. Sean managed a quick, instinctive gasp and then the hands tightened and cut off his breath.

His left arm was pinned under Richard’s knee. With his right hand he clawed at Richard’s hands, but the grip was tight with fury and grief; he could not loosen it. He reached up, going for the throat or eyes, but Richard was taller than he, and long in the arms; he could not reach a vulnerable spot.

The gun. Somewhere on the floor. He groped over the floorboards, searching for the gun and not finding it. A crushing pain in his throat, his lungs air-starved and he thought if he could get a breath in, just one, he might have the strength to throw Richard off him.

But he couldn’t get a breath, his lungs burned, his fingertips brushed the gun but his hand shook uncontrollably and he couldn't grasp it. Though he could still feel the floorboards beneath him at the same time he seemed to be sinking into a void. The pain in his throat was still there but it was distant, as if it was happening to someone else. Darkness creeping in around the edges of his vision as he went deeper into the void, not sinking anymore but falling, and he knew he'd go on falling forever.

No. Not this.
Terror gave him one last burst of energy and he groped wildly for something to hold on to, to pull himself up out of the void. Reached out and found the gun, clutched it tightly.

Even now he remembered that he could not kill Richard. Dared not risk a shot. He focused his dimming sight as best he could and saw that Richard was within his reach now; had brought himself closer, the better to see his enemy die. Sean gripped the gun by the barrel and swung it at Richard with all of his waning strength.

He did not see the blow fall, only felt the shock of vibration travel down his arm. Felt Richard’s body fall away from his, off to the side, felt the hands release his throat. Light and pain rushed back into the world as air filled his lungs. He could not seem to get enough air, greedily gasped in oxygen until he was dizzy. But alive.

When his limbs stopped shaking, Sean got to his hands and knees. His throat burned with every breath, swallowing was agony, he did not dare try to speak. He knelt there, staring at his hands, not wanting to look up and see Richard. And Anna. Finally he forced himself to it. Looked at Richard first.

Richard lay on his side, unconscious, but breathing. His leg was bleeding, but it was a flesh wound. It would need a dressing but was nothing major. A bump on his head from where he’d been struck with the gun, but hopefully not a concussion. If so, there was nothing to do about it anyway.

He wanted to take Richard and go. Just go.
No you don’t, you rat bastard. You can’t get off that easy. Drag your carcass over there. Look at her. Look at what you’ve done.

Sean made himself crawl over to the hearth, hoping that his eyes, which had seen death often enough to recognize it at once, had lied to him. They had not. Anna lay crumpled on the hearth. Her eyes were open, the right pupil huge and blown. Blood had trickled from her right ear. He laid his fingers against her wrist, praying for a pulse. Nothing.

“I’m sorry.” His throat would not let him make a sound, but it didn’t matter. He could have howled the words at the top of his voice and they would have changed nothing. He got to his feet, picked Anna up — gently, carefully, as if he could hurt her any more — and laid her down on the sofa, covered her with an afghan. An afghan he had seen her crocheting all these months, he realized, and went to his knees again on the floor. He knew he should get moving, but he waited. Waited to feel something.

Sean knew what he should feel. Remorse for Anna, pity for Blaine. Terror of the void that had nearly claimed him, relief at having escaped it. Triumph at catching his quarry, plans for the work still to be done. He knelt, waiting.

But felt nothing at all.

“H
ow long, do you think?”

It was the first thing she’d said in a long time, and saying it was difficult. Every muscle in her body, it seemed, was wire-tight as she braced herself against the rise and fall, pitch and yaw, the sudden jolts as the boat caught a rogue wave or gust of wind. Her feet seemed bolted to the floor, her hands gripped the armrests so tightly her knuckles were white and her wrists cramped painfully. She dared not release her grip long enough to look at her watch; they could have been out here for minutes or hours, for all she knew.

“Hard to say,” Gene replied. “The wind and the current’s at our back, but you get this cross-current around the point, pushing us toward shore.”

“Isn’t that a good thing, to be close to shore?”

He shook his head. “The waves get rougher. And there’s rocks. We hit those and...” He glanced back at her. “Well, let’s just hope we don’t.”

The old Jennifer would have been content to leave it at that. But the one who had lived through the L.A. federal building knew better. “What if we do?” she asked. “Tell me, Gene.”

He glanced back at her again, as if gauging her ability to stand the truth of the situation. “If the
Tally-ho
hits the rocks, she’ll most likely break up, at the least get a hole punched in her hull. She’ll sink. We’ll have to take our chances in the dinghy.”

The dinghy? Not that rubber thing with the little propeller motor on the back? If the
Tally-ho
didn’t have a chance in this weather, what would happen to that dinghy? Of course, she and Gene both had life jackets on, but how much good would those do? Jennifer looked over her shoulder, out the window. Nothing but black out there, but then a flash of lightning lit the world. For an instant she could see, and she was glad when the lightning was gone because she didn’t want to see it longer than she had to. It was as if the ocean had gone mad, been sent to a roiling boil, but a cold one. She was a fair enough swimmer, but what was that against those waves? And life jacket or no, how long before the cold sucked the life out of you?

If the
Tally-ho
hit the rocks or capsized, they would almost certainly die. It was that simple.

She clutched the armrests harder. She would have cried out but her jaw was locked tight. In her mind was nothing so coherent as a prayer; it was more like a bargain.
I don’t want to die, but if I have to, please don’t let it hurt too much. If it’s both of us, please don’t separate us, I don’t want to die alone.

She swallowed hard. Silently voiced the next part of it. The hardest part.
And if one of us has to go, let it be me. Gene has Matthew to think of.

But once she thought it, it seemed it was the easiest part. She’d known since the federal building was bombed that no one was special, your number could be up at any time. A bomb, a car accident, a cancer undetected and lying in wait, a fall down a flight of stairs. A thousand more. Nothing made her exempt, she had known it then, knew it better now. What mattered was how you met it.

“Jen?”

She thought she would not be able to turn her head, her muscles were so tight. But her fear had eased. It was still there, but she had mastered it. It no longer mastered her. “Yes?”

“It’s going to be OK. We’re almost around the point and then we’ll be through the worst of it,” Gene said. His eyes were clear and she could read them. Fear there, but he had mastered it as well.

“Thank God for that.” And it did seem that the ocean had calmed a bit; she felt a lull in the waves.

Gene touched her hair, smiled. “I’m glad you’re here. It would have—” Abruptly he stopped, peered out the front window, then peered around to the left. Port, or was it starboard? “Oh shit! Hang on!”

“What—” she began but before she could finish something hit the boat on the left side like a car slamming into a brick wall. Jennifer screamed as she was flung back against the wall, bounced and then was on the floor. Dimly she heard the sound of breaking glass. Cold water poured over her.

Curled up into a ball, she wiped water out of her eyes and looked for Gene. He wasn't at the controls. "Gene? Gene!" she called out. There was a rattling sound from the far end of the cabin; several of the cabinets had burst open, their contents spilled out, and on the floor, under a pile of tools and dishes, was Gene.

Jennifer didn't feel herself get up and run to him; next thing she knew, she was there, pulling away a toolbox. As she did, before she could say anything, Gene groaned and sat up, pushing debris aside. He had a cut on his head — like Mr. Danvers back in the federal building, she noticed with a feeling of déjà vu — but otherwise seemed unhurt.

"I'm OK," he said. He lurched to his feet and ran for the controls, seized the wheel with one hand and with the other grabbed the radio handset. Although she stood beside him, she could barely hear him over the sound of the storm, only caught the word
Mayday
repeated over and over. There was a most peculiar feeling, as if the boat was being lifted up slowly, gently. Nothing like it had happened during this voyage; Gene noticed it too. He left off yelling into the radio and looked around in bewilderment.