Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (23 page)

Stone glanced at her. “I lost my pager, Jaz,” he said. He sounded like it was the end of the world.

For a moment, her face looked shocked and worried, but quickly her expression became bored again. “Now is not the time to worry about work,” she said.

“He just about went overboard,” I said. “Both of us did. The wave probably ripped it off his belt. It’s at the bottom of Superior now.”

She stared at me, and then looked at Tony.

“The pager is the least of your worries,” said Phil. He pointed to me.
“Move around,” indicating that I should sit at the top of the U with my back to the starboard wall. It was a pretty good strategic arrangement. Jasmine stood just out of Stone’s reach, against the mast-foot.
She couldn’t move from the mast in any case.
My hands were visible on the table, and it wasn’t possible to make any sudden moves – I was encumbered by the table, which extended
over my legs,
almost to my stomach.
No way
was I
getting out
of
there fast.
Stone was out in the open, but too far from anyone to make a move. He still looked a little groggy from the fall.

“We’ve heard about you, Borden,” said Angela. “We know y
ou are a killer, but so are we.
So sit tight back there. I don’t think that even you can move fast enough to get anywhere before we shoot you.”

“You shoot me, you might put a hole in the boat,” I said. “You’d be killing yourself.”

“Hollow-point bullets,” said Phil.
“
They spread out on impact. Made to stay inside the body they hit. Do a lot of damage to the target, but not to anything behind it. If we’d used them before, maybe you wouldn’t be walking so well right now.”

“Shut up Phil,” snapped Angela. But I could see the gleam of Stone’s eyes under his lowered brow.

“You – ” I paused to feign incredulity. “You were the bank robbers?”

Angela
stepped
over to Phil and slapped him on the face. “You’re an idiot, Phil
ip
, as I’ve told you before. They don’t need to know anything.”

I looked closely at Phil
,
but the slap did not seem to shock him. He took it as if it were a normal way of relating.
“Sorry
,
Angela,” he mumbled. I could see the red
flush
spreading across his whole face, not just where her hand had struck him.

There was a long silence that stretched out even longer until it simply became the way things were.
The sound of storm was
louder down here. The boat creaked and groaned as she heaved through the
water. I could hear banging and thumping from above, and I assumed that various ropes and pulleys were being slapped against the deck by the angry waves. T
he engine beat stolidly through the deck.
I slowly began to warm up.

“Can I take off my jacket?” I asked. “My legs are cold, and I want to cover them.”

“Nice and slow. Stand up where we can see what you are doing.”

I couldn’t really stand up straight. But I slid my back up the wall with my knees bent, and slowly, awkwardly removed my coat. My helpless position and easy movements seemed to satisfy them. After it was off
,
I held it up in my hand. Angela nodded. I sat back down and spread it over my legs under the table.
I fumbled a little bit.

“Hands back on the table,” said Angela.

I put them back in view.
I let my head droop with shock and weariness. My shoulders slumped in
defeat
. But inside
,
I was buzzing
.
W
hen Stone
fell on me and coughed, he had
whispered “FBI. Wait my signal.” And when he was getting up
,
pushing and pulling on me,
he had stuffed a knife into my
jacket
pocket.

Time passed. Phil sat on the outside stern-end of the U-shaped settee
to my left,
facing forward. Angela settled on the companionway steps, the whole cabin in front of her.
Take the Money and Run
was flowing through my head endlessly. I got the irony, I hated it, but I couldn’t stop looping that song over and over again. The pitching and rolling of
the
Tiny Dancer
was getting worse.
All of us had to brace ourselves constantly against violent movements of the boat.
I moved a little
,
to try and keep my muscles loose, but it didn’t help. I had been cold and wet, and now sitting still had begun to make me stiff and sore. I leaned back against the hull and glanced around aimlessly.

“What are you
r
plans for us?” I asked Phil.

“Shut up,” said Angela.

“That’s nice,” I said. “But I’d like more specifics.”

No one said anything.

“Chatty group,” I said. I
looked at Stone, sitting against the opposite settee.
His head was down, but he was nodding imperceptibly, like maybe he wanted me to keep talking. I glanced sidewise to my right at Jasmine, and she too gave the tiniest nod.

“So, a sailboat seems like a slow way to get where you want to go.” I could have
been
talking to
a trout I
had
just caught.

“So
.” I stretched again.
“Y
ou guys are the bank robbers that have confounded everyone on the North Shore. Pretty clever
modus operandi – small banks, small police forces, no FBI
.”
I was careful not to look at Stone when I said that.
Still no response.
I was used to preaching to tough crowds, but this was ridiculous. I swallowed and gathered myself before my next comment.

“You have your flaws
,
though. You tend to get your partners shot, don’t you? First my dad shoots one of you, then me. Pretty ironic, huh?”

With an inarticulate cry, Phil dove across the table at me.
I caught a glimpse of him swinging his gun like a club, and then something
very hard and sharp-edged struck me high on the
left side of the
head. I flung up my arms, and caught another blow on the forearm. Through the ringing of my head and the blood that had begun to flow down into my eyes, I sensed another blow. I twisted
towards it
, caught his arm
and pulled it down, jamming his wrist
between me and the
edge of the table
.
I slammed it hard
and he grunted and dropped the gun onto
the floor under the table.
I ducked under after
it, but
before I could reach
the weapon, Angela’s voice cut like a whip
-
crack. “Touch it and he dies.”

Slowly I pulled myself up above the table top. Angela stood with her left ha
n
d around Stone’s head, the gun screwed into his right ear.
Phil was kneeling on the aft portion of the settee, kitty-corner from me, wringing his right hand.

“Philip, get the gun,” said Angela, speaking as if to a slow child.

He backed off the seat, knelt to
his
hands and knees and scooted under the table. A moment
lat
er
,
I gasped as he struck me in the shin with the butt of the gun.

“Enough, Phil
ip
,” said Angela.
“We need him able-bodied.”

Phil emerged from the under the table, chest heaving. My shin felt like I
had
kicked a coffee table with it as hard as I could.

“I wanna kill him,” said Phil. “Can we just kill him now?”

“Shut up
,
Phil
ip
,”
said Angela patiently. She looked at me. “You killed his twin brother, so he doesn’t like you very much
,
you see.”

My face felt wooden.
Blood dripped down my forehead.
“So
the man I shot died
then,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.” And I didn’t. What kind of ordinary person
ever would
?

Phil just glared at me with pure hatred.

I thought about pointing out that if no one had been shooting at me, I would not have fired back. I might have suggested that if one didn’t rob banks, one would be less likely to get shot. But I didn’t think
it was what I would call
a teachable moment. And truthfully
,
I was too distressed about my own part in it to say anything more.

Angela took a smooth step backwards. “Come stand in the galley, Philip,” she said to her husband.
She grabbed his arm and p
ulled him over as he passed her
and whispered something into his ear. He took a breath and nodded, and then
moved behind the
galley
counter, covering me with his gun, leaving Angela to cover Stone.

I wiped at my bloody face. Angela got a washcloth from the galley for me, and I held it to my head, which began to throb.

It was not exactly quiet, with the roar of the storm, the beat of the engine and crash of water against the vessel, but somehow inside the cabin, things began to settle down again. Stone had not
had time
to act
during the confusion
– Angela was too quick
. I didn’t know what else I could do. I wasn’t so sure about
the
future either. One of my captors clearly wanted me dead.

Stone hunched far over,
bracing
his elbows on his knees, his head hanging low. Jasmine slid her bound hands down the mast foot
and sat on the floor,
leaning her head on the brightly polished
pole.
I was tired and sore, but I didn’t dare fall asleep while I waited for a signal from Stone. I started to get hungry.

Suddenly, without warning, the engine stopped. A moment later
,
it coughed and sp
uttered,
then
died again. We heard the fruitless sound of a starter laboring to give life to an engine that would not catch.
Stone looked up, alert. I watched him.

Immediately, our movement in the water changed. Though it was rough before, our steerage had given the boat a certain rhythm, almost predictable. But now we bounced around any which way, and the movements grew more and more violent.

“What the
–
” said Angela, turning for the companionway as the door slid open and Leyla’s form appeared, haggard, wet and cold.

“Now!” said Stone.
Across from me,
his
right hand dropped smoothly to his ankle and then he stood up rapidly, holding a gun, straightening his arm toward Angela.
“FBI!” he shouted. “Drop your guns.”
Time slowed down for me, as it always seems to in such moments. I threw my jacket into Phil’s face. He fired blind twice, the boom shockingly loud in the confined cabin, but I was already under the table, squirming like mad for the walkway.

I emerged and looked up at Stone
. He was
hesitating as he noticed Leyla
in
the companionway
above and
behind Angela
, in the line of fire
. Angela herself was still half turned between Leyla and the rest of the cabin. Then a violent wave threw Stone off balance. Angela brought up her gun and fired four times in rapid succession.
Leyla screamed.

The noise of the shots was like a physical blow. Stone’s gun clattered to the floor
,
and he sat back down heavily on the settee.

My ears were ringing, though I still dimly heard the waves and wind in the background. Jasmine was calling Stone’s name urgently. Leyla had sat down on the top step of the companionway. As I watched, water cascaded across her back
,
and she turned and pulled the doors shut.

Angela’s
weapon
was
trained
on me
.
“Stay away from his gun.”
Her face was flushed and she was breathing fast. She was smiling.

“I’m kicking it
to you,” I said. I push
ed it away from me with my foot
and turned to Stone, who was half reclined on the settee to my right.
His entire right side was a mass of blood.

“I can help,”
Jasmine said
. “Let me go, let me help him.”