The Daughter-in-Law (42 page)

“Jesus,” Jack screamed when the sound of the pistol shot reached him.

“Let’s go!” Greg snapped at the captain who was already reaching for the throttle. The boat jerked itself up and skimmed out around the point. Within seconds, the dark outlines of the yacht came into sight against the background of lights on the land. It looked so close, yet every second seemed an eternity.

“They wouldn’t kill her,” Alexandra said to no one in particular. “Why would they kill Pam? They have the money. They have Nicole. It couldn’t have been Pam ...”

Jack squeezed her hand, but his focus was locked onto the yacht. He was hoping that he would hear more gunfire. More shots would indicate a battle with maybe the police overcoming Pam’s captors. The single shot sounded ominously like an execution.

They turned around the stern of the boat, slowed the engine, and made for the gangway platform. At the last second, the captain saw something in the water and veered away. A searchlight snapped on and lit up the platform as a black-suited diver hoisted himself out of the water. Another appeared next to him, and together they lifted a struggling figure up between them. Ben Tobin held up his hand to protect his eyes from the glare.

“Ben?” Jack was openmouthed. He gaped mindlessly as the boat made its landing behind the launch. Police were onboard instantly, taking Ben away from the divers. He came face-to-face with Jack.

“Ben, what are you—”

“It’s Nicole, Jack. I followed her here. She came to kill Pam ...”

Jack was bewildered. He looked around to see if the others had heard what he had heard.

“She’s up there now,” Ben continued, “looking for Pam. You’ve got to stop her.”

One of the divers stood awkwardly. “You were the one trying to kill someone. You were trying to drag a woman into the boat.”

Ben flustered for only an instant. “That was Nicole. I was taking her ashore to turn her over to the police. Now she’s back up there! For Christ’s sake, Jack, you’ve got to stop her!”

Ben pulled free from the hands that were holding him and started up the ladder. Policemen with assault rifles were right behind him. “She’s armed,” Ben warned. “She’s gone crazy!”

Nicole had caught only a glimpse of the diver, and had stood transfixed while Ben gyrated and fell over. The gunshot had sent a jolt of fear through her that kept her frozen for another few seconds. But as Ben disappeared under the lapping waves, she had turned and raced back up the ladder. Even with Pam still aboard, the yacht seemed a safe haven from the struggle that was taking place at her feet.

She hesitated when she reached the deck and looked fore and aft. What she needed was a place to hide. A place where Pam wouldn’t find her and where she could wait until the man in the water showed his hand. She hoped he was a rescuer sent by Jack, but he might also be from Jimmy Farr.

She ran forward and tried a hatch that led into the yacht’s galley. It was locked from the inside. Then another hatch atop the crew’s quarters. It too had been locked. She ran aft and pushed open the saloon door that Ben Tobin had just brought her through. The room was dark but she remembered the lounge area with its soft chairs. She crouched down and felt her way into a corner hidden by a chair. Then she sat in the darkness. She guessed that Pam would be coming up from below. She must have heard the pistol. She would certainly know that something had gone wrong.

There was an engine sound, still at a distance Nicole guessed, but growing closer. Then she could hear the pounding of a boat against the water. Someone was coming. Probably whoever had sent the diver. But who was it? The police, called by Jack when he finally heard her message? Or Farr’s people, who had followed her from the city, or who had been watching the house?

The boat landed. Nicole could hear people jumping onto the landing and the sound of voices. She couldn’t recognize any of them, until one voice broke out of the confusion. It was Ben Tobin’s. There were suddenly footsteps pounding up the ladder, and then Ben was warning the others that she had a gun. That she was crazy.

The cabin light flashed on, a startling blast coming out of the darkness. Nicole blinked and risked a glance around the chair. Pam was walking toward her with a small chrome pistol clutched in both hands. She hesitated an instant to look behind the first chair. Then she took another step and pointed the gun over the second chair and right at Nicole’s head. Nicole sprang up, pushing the chair ahead of her and into Pam’s face. Pam fell backward but kept her balance. When Nicole came toward her she was staring at the muzzle.

Ben, with the armed police at his heels, had just reached the deck when the lights in the saloon flashed on. Shafts of light fell from the windows and instinctively the men dove for cover, Ben flat on the deck and the policemen up against the superstructure. Greg Lambert came up and threw himself down next to Ben.

“Get in there. Shoot her before she kills Pam,” Tobin whispered frantically.

Suddenly Greg’s gun was in his face. “You stay right here! Don’t move!”

“But we have to save Pam ...”

“Just don’t move a muscle.”

The policemen were already edging forward, each covering the other as he moved. Greg got to his feet and walked directly to the stern, past the assault team and the open windows.

“Get down,” a policeman cautioned in a whisper.

Lambert kept walking to the open cabin door. On the way, he pushed his weapon into a holster that hung on his back. “Pam!” he shouted, and then, “Nicole! You can come out now. It’s all over.”

“She has a gun,” Nicole’s voice shouted back. There was a crashing sound, followed instantly by a gunshot. Lambert stepped through the doorway only to be pushed aside by the rushing assault team.

Nicole was on the floor, next to the toppled chair. Pam was standing over her, pressing the tiny chrome weapon against Nicole’s head. The assault team pulled up short.

“It’s over, Pam,” Greg announced. “Give me that damn thing before you get yourself into real trouble.”

“Get back,” Pam said ferociously. “I swear to God, I’ll kill her. She and I are leaving, and no one better try to stop us.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Alexandra pushed the police aside and stepped into the cabin. Pam’s hard expression suddenly turned uncertain.

“You look ridiculous with that thing,” Alexandra said. She started toward her daughter. “Give it to me before you hurt yourself.”

Pam backed away, but she still held the gun, now raised toward her mother. “Stay back,” she said. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

Alexandra’s pace never faltered. “Of course you don’t want to shoot me. Whoever heard of anything so ridiculous.” Pam backed against the table. Alexandra kept walking right at the gun.

The police were frozen in place. They had a clear shot at the girl, but then Alexandra walked in front of her. It was too dangerous to fire.

“Don’t come any closer,” Pam said. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea.

Alexandra reached out her hand. “I said, ‘Give it to me!’ ”

Pam’s eyes were locked on her mother’s. Then the hand holding the gun began to tremble. Her grip softened. She turned the pistol on its side and laid it gently into her mother’s hand.

She turned to Nicole. “And as for you young lady ...” She saw the stain spreading across Nicole’s chest and down the sleeve of her shirt. “Oh, dear God, she’s been shot.”

EIGHTY

A
POLICEMAN
used a dinner napkin to slow the bleeding while a wire gurney was brought up from the boat. Nicole was carried down the gangway, put aboard the police launch, and rushed ashore. Alexandra was at her side. Pam was kept in the saloon, watched over by the two assault specialists. Jack sat beside her, holding her hand. Ben Tobin was under guard out on the afterdeck. The police had tried to question him but he had fallen back on his legal training and remained silent.

Greg Lambert didn’t need a confession to figure out what had taken place. Ben couldn’t have come aboard the yacht to rescue Pam from Nicole. There was only one launch, and if Nicole was aboard she must have used it to come out from the dock. Ben had to have been aboard before her.

It was also obvious that Pam hadn’t been kidnapped. She had to be the one who had provided the keys to the yacht, and moved it from its yacht club berth. She knew that a secure mooring would be waiting offshore because she was the one who had ordered it set for the party. So whatever they were into, they were into it together.

What he couldn’t yet understand was the reason. Nicole had been paid off handsomely and, as he understood it, was leaving the country. Everyone wanted her to disappear so why did Pam and Ben go to such great lengths to get her back? Why did they want her dead when it was obvious that she wasn’t bringing them any money? He had trusted the police diver’s instincts when he said that Ben was trying to kill Nicole. And Ben’s hastily concocted story that he was taking Nicole ashore to turn her over hadn’t rung true. Wouldn’t his first concern be to bring Pam ashore to safety? So when he had shouted that Nicole had a gun and urged Greg to shoot her, Greg had realized exactly what was involved. They needed Nicole dead, and even in the process of rescuing Pam, Ben had been more concerned with having Nicole shot.

The only thing he still couldn’t comprehend was why.

The police launch returned around the point, this time with its lights blazing. The boat had come back to bring the prisoners and their guards to shore. Maybe then, in a police interrogation room, he would get the answer. Or maybe Nicole would be able to tell him. If she lived.

Alexandra waited in the hallway, sipping a terrible cup of coffee that had come from a vending machine. She had watched Nicole being rolled down the corridor, an IV held over her head by a nurse who had to run to keep up. She had disappeared behind swinging doors into the arms of a medical team that was already waiting. Then the parade began. A endless stream of doctors, nurses, and technicians had rushed in and out. Frightening looking machines had been delivered, along with plastic bags filled with blood.

Alexandra caught the arm of every person who came out through the swinging doors. “How is she?”

One nurse simply patted her hand and pulled away. Another mumbled that they were doing everything that they could. Then a doctor asked her, “Are you family?”

“Yes,” she announced, surprised at her own answer. “Yes, she’s my daughter.” The doctor took her arm and led her inside.

Nicole was on a gurney, surrounded by what seemed to be confusion. Her face was hidden in a mask connected to a thick flexible hose. IV bags hung from posts, draining fluids into her arm and leg. Blood was dripping into the other arm. Wires seemed to come from every part of her body, connecting her to machines that showed graphs and numbers and beeped ominously.

There were three people hovering over her head, working on a gaping wound just under her collarbone. They moved spastically, using and discarding instruments at a frantic pace, grunting words that Alexandra didn’t understand. Other figures in medical garb were lined up on both sides of the table, one holding a huge hypodermic at the ready, another feeling for a vein so that she could start another IV. Most ghastly of all was the blood that was spattered down the fronts of the gowns and was dripping from the edge of the gurney. Red-soaked gauze pads were scattered on the floor.

Alexandra could take only a few seconds of the brutal procedure.
She turned her eyes away and then walked out the door. She was shocked that Pam’s little chrome-plated pistol could have done so much damage. She paced for a while, and then stopped at the vending machine for another cup of coffee.

The doctor who had been working on Nicole’s wound came through the door, his mask hanging down around his neck. He seemed just a boy to Alexandra, and he was past her before she realized who he was.

“Doctor?”

He stopped.

“Will she make it?”

He seemed uncertain. “We’ve stopped the bleeding. But she lost a lot of blood. We’re trying to get her stable, and then we’ll get her up to surgery.”

“Will she make it?” Alexandra demanded.

“I think so,” he said. “But she’s not out of the woods. Next hour or so will tell.”

Alexandra nodded and whispered a word of thanks.

At the police station, Jack was already launched into damage control. He had noted Ben Tobin’s example, and wouldn’t let anyone talk to his daughter. He had called Victor Crane, given him a thirty-second summary of events, and told him to hire the best criminal lawyer he knew.

“Kidnapped herself?” Crane asked, his shock obvious. “I’m not sure that’s a crime ...”

“There may also have been extortion.”

“Money? Who was she extorting from?”

“It’s not that simple,” Jack said. “We’re going to need that criminal lawyer.”

Like Greg Lambert, Jack had figured out the scheme. He had met Nicole in his town house, so he knew she couldn’t have been out on the boat holding Pam captive. He had also figured out how Jimmy Farr was involved. Jimmy had been looking for Nicole and watching Pam figuring that Nicole might contact her. His people had followed Pam to Newport, and knew that she had taken one of the family cruisers and headed out. Then the boat had shown up at a mooring right in front of the Donner house.

Farr must have been stunned when Greg visited him with the news of Pam’s kidnapping, and delighted that the Donners thought
he was involved. All he had to do was collect the money and then tell them where their daughter could be found. If they thought the money had bought her freedom, they might still come after him. But how could he be charged with a kidnapping that had never taken place, or with extortion when he hadn’t demanded any money?

Jack could understand Farr’s motives. The man was driven by money and would stoop to any level in order to enrich himself. But nobody got away with cheating Jack Donner. Farr’s reckoning would come. What he couldn’t begin to understand was why Pam was involved. Or Ben Tobin, for that matter. It had to be an effort to take the money that Nicole had just been awarded. But Pam didn’t need money. In a few years she would come into a fortune much larger than anything she could take from Nicole. And Ben? Maybe he couldn’t stand to hand that much of his friend’s money over to a woman who had known him for such a short time. But he was an attorney with a promising career that would be completely ruined by his involvement in a crime. Why would either of them have risked so much? Self-interest didn’t explain it. It must have been irrational hatred of Nicole.