Leaving Annalise (Katie & Annalise Book 2) (24 page)

I’d had a gun pulled on me before, felt that cold, hard steel against my skin, but it was different this time because I didn’t see it coming. Not one bit. A strong arm grabbed me around the waist and someone jammed the barrel of a pistol into my side under the loose edge of my shirt.

“Long time no see,” an unforgettable voice said in my ear.

Derek. But Derek was supposed to be arrested by now. Something had gone very, very wrong.

“Keep walking, bitch,” he sneered with a tightness and pitch that told me the guy had totally lost it. My heartbeat sounded like a racehorse in my ears, but as I listened to Derek, it slowed down, time slowed down, everything slowed down. I put one foot in front of the other and pushed Taylor’s stroller several more yards until Derek said, “Stop here. Get in my truck.”

His truck? If I hadn’t known my truck was on St. Marcos, I’d have sworn the old red Ford was one and the same. I let go of the stroller and started to get in, hoping I could leave Taylor on the street, that Derek would just take me. Someone would come by and rescue the boy.

“Don’t be cute. My boy, too.”

I leaned in close to Taylor. His eyes were wide. “It’s going to be just fine. Come here, sweets, come to Katie.”

“Ma,” he said. “Ma. Ma.”

“That’s right, darlin’, come on now.” I lifted him out and pressed him into my chest. He whipped his head around to stare at Derek.

“Doesn’t say boo to his own father. Poisoned against me.” Derek gestured with the gun. “Now.”

I opened the door with one hand and clamped Taylor to my hip with the other. He was a good thirty pounds, but I barely felt his weight at that moment. Derek pointed the gun at us until we were in, then walked around to the driver’s side. I reached out to blow the horn, but nothing happened. No power. No keys in the ignition. Shit.

Derek got in, reached under the steering wheel, and fiddled with the exposed wires. It wasn’t his truck. I prayed someone would recognize it as stolen and call the cops. The engine roared to life and he made a U-turn.

“Anybody ever tell you I got a brother?” he asked me. “Bobby?”

I didn’t see a way out of answering, and I didn’t know what the right answer was, so I said, “Yes.”

“I was at my job today—my worthless, stupid, insulting, pitiful job that I have to do so I can prove I’m a good daddy and deserve all of what is rightfully mine—when some unexpected customers arrived, only they weren’t there to buy shoes so I could make my crappy commission. They busted in, front and back, weapons drawn, like sneaky pigs.”

He spat on the floorboard and I jerked my feet away involuntarily, which made him laugh and do it again.

“I heard it all. I heard them scream at my brother and for everyone to freeze. But Bobby is young, he hasn’t been through this kind of shit before, and he ran. The stupid little prick ran. And then, boom, boom, one of those pigs put a bullet in my brother.”

My mouth went dry. I kept it shut.

“You’re wondering right now, how can I be here with all that going down back at Chico’s? Am I right?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He stopped at a red light and turned right.

“The pigs didn’t know there’s a space above the store where we keep inventory. I’d pretended to be a good employee and gone up to get some more shitty shoes right before they came, which is all for show anyway, since I really go up there because that’s where we keep the special merchandise stashed for my brother to sell to his stupid friends.”

Derek slowed down and turned left into the parking lot of the marina.

“So I’m up in the attic when I hear all this going down below me, and I decide it’s time for me to get gone, so I did. Here’s where it gets good. It’s all one big attic stretching across the top of the stores on the block, with a window at the end. It was a long jump down. I’m not too happy about what it did to my nice work slacks.” He motioned toward his knees. I couldn’t help but look. His khakis were streaked with ground-in dirt. Derek pulled into a handicapped parking spot nearest the far line of boats.

“And then I walk down that street, nobody paying attention to me, and I walk away. A car door opens across the street, two doors open, and I see this muscly motherfucker, and I see your boy Nick.”

He put the truck in park. “He took my woman, he took my son, he took my money, and now he took my brother. Did you know about this?”

I bit my lip, then shook my head no. But I did know. All of it.

“Bitch, you’re lying.”

His right arm shot out and slugged me in the jaw so fast I never saw it coming. I screamed, then bit down hard. My head literally rang. Taylor started to cry and I turned my face back toward Derek, angry now. He grinned, then reached down and disconnected the wires and the truck stopped.

“After I saw him, I ran like hell, lost ’em both. I am putting two and two together, so I jack a car and head for the marina. Now I’m in a real big hurry, so I skip the ferry and I hotwire one of those cigarette boats. I come across to Port A,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that, I borrow this truck, and here we are. Now, time for a little joyride.”

There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t going anywhere with him. But something about what he said didn’t make sense. “How did you know we were here?”

“You’re supposed to be so smart, Ms. Attorney. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

And then I knew. Why I hadn’t seen it before, I didn’t know, because when the realization dawned, it was obvious. I just hadn’t paid attention. My own husband had told me the answer that very morning. The damn rehab. Bart. Slither. Trevor.
Derek.

He saw it on my face, I could tell. “All I had to do was ask Bart where I could find my kid today. Grandma’s, he said. Hey, does your husband know how much you talk to your old boyfriend?”

Bart. You stupid, stupid man.

He reached out and tried to trace a finger across my lips, but I jerked my head away.

“We’re going to have fun. Now get out. And remember I have a gun.”

I needed to figure out a way out of this, and fast. We were running out of time. I opened the door and lowered myself to the pavement, keeping a tight grip on Taylor. His grip on me was even tighter. Derek made it around the truck in time to meet me with a gun to the ribs again.

“Walk. We’re the first boat on the left.”

I walked. All of the amazing moves I could have made to break free wouldn’t work with a toddler in my arms. I knew all too well he couldn’t swim, and I was sure he didn’t repel bullets, either. I stopped at the first boat on the left.

“Hand me the kid,” Derek said.

I clutched Taylor tighter. “Why?” I said. Then, “No.”

“Do it, or I shoot him in the foot. He can always get a new one.” He cocked the trigger.

Shit. He was insane. I pried Taylor away from me and he started to scream. I handed him to Derek and his screams intensified. Derek held him awkwardly and stepped onto the boat. When he put Taylor down, Taylor scuttled as fast as he could to the far side of the boat, howling.

As soon as Derek took Taylor, I reached into my pocket for my phone. I had to get a call off to Kurt and Julie. I tried to unlock the screen, but my fingers were wet with humidity. I tried again.

And then Derek’s foot connected with my phone on its way into my chest. The iPhone flew from my hands and into the water, and I followed it in slow motion, tumbling backwards. I hit the water headfirst, and the shock of the cold felt like a mule kick. Water surged into my sinuses. My jeans and sweatshirt weighed me down and I flailed to find which way was up. There was no light on that dreary day, and all I could see was blackness.

An enormous rumbling started above me and to my left and I realized it was the boat’s engine. That had to be the way up, but I needed to stay clear of the sound. I righted myself and kicked frantically. My hand broke the surface first, then my head, and I coughed and gasped.

Derek had pulled the cigarette boat out of the slip, and it was gliding away from me. Taylor was screaming bloody murder beside him. Derek put the boat in idle and jerked Taylor off the seat.

“No,” I yelled. Like he could hear me as I thrashed by the pier, trying to swim toward them in heavy, sodden clothes. I watched helplessly as Derek put an adult life jacket on Taylor’s tiny body. His mop of brown hair was the only thing showing out the top. Then Derek grabbed a ski rope and threaded it through the arms of the life jacket.

What the hell was he doing? Was he going to drag Taylor behind the boat?

I was only marginally relieved when he sat Taylor roughly in the seat beside him and tied the rope around the seat. When he had him strapped in, he turned to me and yelled, “God, does he ever shut up? This is what happens when you don’t raise a boy to be a man.” He turned from me and put the boat back in gear. It eased forward.

My completely ineffectual attempt to swim had gotten me to the next boat, which had a swim platform on its stern. I hoisted myself onto it, crawled into the boat, ran to the bow, and jumped onto the pier. The marina was deserted. I could call the police if my iPhone wasn’t at the bottom of the harbor. I didn’t have my purse. I didn’t have a car.

But Derek did. I ran across the parking lot and yanked open the truck’s door and searched frantically for some form of electronic communication, crawling through the cab, rifling the glove box and cramming my hands under the bench seat. Nothing.

I was eye level with the steering wheel when the rainbow of electrical wires triggered an idea. The marina was less than five minutes from Kurt’s friend Nate’s house at the mouth of the harbor. Maybe I could get there before Derek did. I didn’t know what I’d do then, but I’d figure it out on the way. For now, I just had to remember how to hotwire the damn truck.

“Red for power,” I said.

I held up the red wire and started sticking its end against the ends of the other wires one at a time. Come on, dashboard lights. The horn honked. I tried another. Windshield wipers. Then I tried yellow and the dash lit up.

“Hell, yeah!” I yelled.

I twisted them together with damp fingers, ignoring the jolts of electricity.

“Green for go,” I said.

I held the green wire to the jumble of red and yellow ones and the engine turned over. And turned and turned and turned.

“Come on, you piece of crap!”

The engine roared to life, and I dropped the green wire. I pulled myself onto the seat, slammed the door, and jammed the gearshift into drive with the accelerator nearly to the floor. I’d never peeled rubber before, never knew how satisfying the spin of the tires as they raced to grip the pavement could be, the jolt as they found traction, the squeal, and the wind in my face through the open windows. The truck rocketed out of the parking lot. I didn’t let off the accelerator for the turn, and the tires squealed again. I ran the red light at the next corner, earning myself a middle-finger salute from an old lady who could barely see over her steering wheel. Now I had one mile of straightaway and I asked the truck for all it had. I prayed no one would pull out in front of me as the speedometer crept past ninety.

At the last turn, I slammed on the brakes and made a sliding left onto Nate’s street. His house was only halfway down the block now. I drove straight through his side yard, laying on the horn all the way down to the water.

Nate jumped up from where he was working on his deck. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hollered.

I all but fell out of the truck as I propelled myself toward him. He met me halfway across the lawn.

“My baby, kidnapped, on a boat coming out of the harbor. Gotta stop them.” I gasped for air.

“Katie Kovacs?”

“Yes, Nick’s Katie. Help me. I need to stop a boat.”

And then I saw her. I stopped and stared, stricken mute, at Annalise. She was standing on Nate’s deck, holding up the end of a fishing net covered with orange balls that Nate had been working on. She gestured at me with it, then turned and pointed behind her to the mouth of the harbor. Approaching from a half mile away, moving slowly through the no-wake zone, was Derek’s boat.

“What is it?” Nate asked. He was probably about two seconds away from calling the psych ward.

“Net!” I screamed. “Nets stop boat engines. Help me get a net across the harbor. He’s taken our baby, and he’s coming.” I pointed.

Nate finally snapped to it. “Someone’s got your kid in that boat? OK, I gotcha. I’ll drag the net across the mouth of harbor. I think I’ve got just enough. Can you hold one end until I give you the signal?”

“Yes, go!” I screamed.

Nate turned and ran to the dock with me right behind him. He handed me one end of the net.

“I’ll give you an OK sign when you need to let go, but you’ll feel it because it’s heavy and it’ll get tight. Don’t let it drag you in.”

“Got it,” I said.

He took the other end of the net onto the
Juggerknot
and tied it around a cleat on the back corner. He threw off the lines in seconds and clambered up to the flying bridge, started the engines, threw the boat into gear, and pushed the throttle forward, all with amazing speed and dexterity.

I carried the net to the end of the dock, looking at the orange baseball-sized Styrofoam floats and realizing that’s what would keep the net at propeller level. I hadn’t even thought about the net sinking. What luck.

I felt the pressure from the net almost immediately, and as I leaned back to steady myself, two black hands took position by mine. My friend’s fingers were long and slender. Beautiful like her, but work-roughened. I snuck a glance at her face. Tears were running down her cheeks, and I realized that I was crying, too.

“Thank you,” I said.

She nodded.

I turned back to watch the
Juggerknot
move directly into Derek’s path. The speedboat was not far from him now. Nate shot me an OK sign.

“Now,” I said to Annalise.

Our four hands released the net at once, just as another boat entered the harbor. The ferry. It was practically a traffic jam. I held my breath. Derek was steadily increasing speed. A hundred twenty-five feet. A hundred feet. My heart pounded in my throat. Seventy-five feet. Fifty feet. Please, God, I prayed, please. Twenty-five feet. And then Derek and his boat were passing the floating net.

My heart sank. It wasn’t going to work. He was going to get away with Taylor.

I looked back at Annalise. She was gazing out into the harbor with a slow smile on her lips. I looked back at Derek’s boat, which was still moving forward.

Until it wasn’t.

Derek ran to the back of the boat, and I could see from a distance he was screaming, probably cursing Taylor’s ears blue, for all the good it would do. No amount of screaming would move that boat forward.

But my elation was replaced by a fearful uncertainty. What now? We’d stopped him, but he still had Taylor, a lot of water around him, and a gun.

The ferry pulled through the inner mouth of the harbor, passing the
Juggerknot
on its port side. And then the ferry did the strangest thing. Instead of going into the marina, it cut its engines and floated up next to Derek’s boat. I shielded my eyes against the dull glare off the midnight-blue water to try to see if the ferry was going to offer Derek a tow.

Two bodies jumped off the stern of the ferry as I watched. I waited for the splash, but it didn’t come because they landed in the cigarette boat. In fact, it looked like one of them landed right on top of Derek, because Derek was down.

“Be careful of my son!” I cried into the sea wind.

Every passenger on the ferry had crowded against the railing to watch the drama. I heard the voice of the captain over a loudspeaker ordering them to return to the safety of their vehicles. But no one seemed to listen. Instead, as I gaped, a cheer went up on the deck. People raised their arms in air. I could hear whoops, hollers, and clapping.

And then the
Juggerknot
pulled up between me and the speedboat, completely blocking my view.

“No, no, no!”