The Last Kiss Goodbye (47 page)

Charlie felt cold water gushing over her ankles, and knew they dare not wait.

“Get up! You got to get out!
Now!
” Michael bent over them, yelling, and Charlie, dazed and hurting as she was, still knew he was right. Water was already rising around her, rising around all of them as it filled the cargo area from front to back. It was cold, fishy-smelling, and shiny black as oil.

Dark water.
Her heart lurched.

Even as Charlie had the thought, she was scrambling upright, grabbing at the wire grid. She couldn’t see much, only the pale shapes that were Kaminsky and the girls. Pain stabbed her behind her eyes; her head swam. She ignored all of it. The van was sinking into the water; if they didn’t get out, they would die.

“Help! Help!” One of the girls shrieked as she struggled to her feet. “Somebody, help us!”

“What’s happening?” another cried. “Diane, where are you?”

Two of them were on their feet now, screaming and clutching each other as they tried to keep their balance in the rising water. As water edged up around her knees, Charlie ignored them, frantically rattling the grid, seeking an area of weakness. There just wasn’t any give—

“Charlie, do you see any way out?” The cry came from Kaminsky, who was sloshing around to her left. Charlie saw that she was hauling the third girl’s head clear of the water, and thrusting her into the arms of one of her friends with the admonition,
“Hang on to her.”

“Babe, there’s a hole in the wire where the bottom of the cage was fastened to the floor of the van. Right here.”

With the water swirling around her thighs now, Charlie followed Michael to the hole. It was small, with jagged edges, but she thought they could fit through it.

“Here,” she called to Kaminsky, holding on to the grid as the van tilted forward a little more and water rose almost to her waist. “Give me one of the girls.”

An instant later, a small cold hand clutched hers.

“This is Kim,” Kaminsky said. “Get her out of here.”

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Kim—she was one of the blondes—gasped over and over again as Charlie helped her wiggle through the hole.

“Go out the door back there, and swim,” Charlie ordered when Kim was free. She watched the girl scramble on all fours up the slippery floor toward the open cargo door, and realized that the van was tilting more.

“Come on, Diane,” Kim cried, stopping to look back as she teetered at the edge of the open door.

“Jump!” Charlie yelled at her. With one last look over her shoulder at the girl Kaminsky was thrusting toward Charlie, Kim did. The sound of the splash told Charlie that the rear of the van was still a good distance above the water.

The problem was, it was sinking fast.

“Hurry,” Michael said urgently.

“Hurry,”
Charlie repeated to Kaminsky as she thrust the second girl—the brunette, who had regained consciousness first—through the hole.

“I’m not a very good swimmer,” the girl—Diane?—cried, looking back.

“Go! We’ll be up there to help you soon,” Kaminsky yelled. She was struggling with the third girl, a delicately built blonde, who, although her eyes were open and she seemed responsive, was still clearly under the influence of the gas.

“You go through and I’ll hand her up to you,” Charlie said, ignoring her pounding heart in favor of holding on to the girl as the water swirled ever higher around them. The angle of the van was increasingly precarious, and keeping her footing was growing ever more difficult.

Nodding, Kaminsky pulled herself through the hole, then reached down for the girl.

“Hold your hands up,” Charlie ordered, then when the girl looked at her blankly she snapped, “Natalie! You’re Natalie, right?” The girl nodded.
“Hold up your hands!”

Natalie did, Kaminsky grabbed them—“I’ve got her!”—and despite the girl’s apparent inability to help much, with Charlie pushing from beneath they managed to get her through.

“Take her on out.” Charlie was already working her way through the hole. “I can manage.”

Kaminsky nodded and started half helping, half pushing Natalie toward the door, where Diane, poised in the opening like a swimmer on the block, hesitated, looking back at them.

“Jump!” Kaminsky yelled at her.

Diane did. Seconds later, Kaminsky and Natalie reached the door.

“I’m out,” Charlie called to Kaminsky as, having made it through the hole, she knelt on top of the cage preparatory to standing up. “Go!”

With a glance back to make sure Charlie really was through, Kaminsky locked a hand in the back of Natalie’s shirt and they both disappeared. A splash an instant later told Charlie they were in the lake.

“Goddamn it, babe, move your ass,” Michael snarled at her.

With a terrifying slurping sound, water reached the top of the cage as Charlie scrambled to her feet. Her heart thudded when the van tilted, and she almost lost her balance.

“Go,”
Michael roared, and Charlie pushed off from the top of the cage, meaning to follow the others to the door and jump into the lake.

But something cold and hard latched on to her ankle, snatched her back. A hand! David! Circumstances—like, say, a short in the electrical system caused by the water which prevented him from operating the doors or windows—must have left him with no choice but to exit the cab through the plastic doors, and force his way into the cage, which he had to pass through to reach the open cargo door. Charlie looked down to see the pale circle of his face glaring up at her through the water as he pushed his way through the hole after her, and her heart gave a great leap.

“Let go!” she cried, kicking at his imprisoning hand. The water rose around her ankles even as David’s head burst through the hole. He only had one arm through. His shoulders, she saw, were too big to fit. “Michael, help!

David’s head cleared the surface of the water, and Michael saw what was happening. “Fuck!”

Even as Charlie fought to yank her ankle free, Michael was at her side, throwing punches, stomping at David’s head, but David never felt a thing. Realizing that Michael really, truly couldn’t materialize, Charlie felt her stomach drop clear to her toes. Her heart pounded. Her pulse raced.

“Help me get out of here,” David groaned. His eyes were wild as they fixed on her, and Charlie fought the urge to scream. She was afraid that if she did, it would incite him, push him into the kind of frenzy that serial killers were typically capable of. Already he was horrifying to look at: his expression made his face a grotesque parody of his usual good looks. His hair was plastered to his skull. Water streamed down his face, running dark on one side, and Charlie realized that his head was bleeding: he must have been injured in the crash. But his hand gripping her ankle felt stronger than it had any right to be, and she remembered that serial killers, when in the zone, often had far greater than normal strength.

“Let me go and I’ll help you!” she promised, tamping down on the hysteria that bubbled into her throat, fighting to stay calm in the face of burgeoning terror, but he laughed. The van swayed, and as he struggled to force himself through the hole the water rose to lap at his chin.

“You better get me out of here! If I go down, you’re going with me,” he threatened her, and she could tell he meant every word. His fingers dug into her flesh, hurting her. Water inched up her calves, the van rocked, and panic surged in an icy tide through her veins. Talking him into letting her go might work, given enough time. But time was what she didn’t have. If she didn’t get free, soon, she was going to drown. To hell with inciting him into a frenzy: she screamed—please God, let Kaminsky hear and come to her aid—and kicked at his face

Yanking her ankle hard, he knocked her off her feet. Charlie landed on her back with a splash. Surprise widened her eyes, made her suck in air. The water slurped around her. The van swayed.

“No!” Charlie screamed as David started pulling her toward him, and she realized that he meant to drag her back down through the hole. Holding on to the grid for dear life, kicking and struggling with every ounce of strength she possessed, she fought to get free even as he inexorably dragged her closer, inch by desperate inch.

“Babe! Behind you!” Michael yelled. Charlie glanced frantically around to see moonlight glinting on a metal canister the size of an oxygen tank that had floated—with Michael’s help?—within her reach. “Grab it and bash him in the head! Now! Quick!”

To do it she had to let go of the grid. She did, snatching the canister up with both hands. It was heavy, solid.

“Got you!” David screeched, jerking her toward him. The lubrication of the water beneath her caused her slide to be terrifyingly fast.

“Hit him!” Michael yelled.

Screaming, Charlie smashed the canister into David’s head with all her might. The thud was sickening. The look in his eyes was worse. They went wide and black. His fingers slackened on her ankle. Shaky with terror, she jerked her leg free, and scrambled out of his reach.

The van slid another few inches into the water.

David just had time to gasp out, “Charlie!” before the water covered his mouth, and then his nose—

“Get the hell out of here!” Michael screamed.

Blocking the horrible sounds of David’s frenzied flailing from her mind, Charlie pushed off from the top of the cage and scrambled toward the strip of night sky she could see through the open cargo door..

Even as she struggled to climb the now nearly vertical floor, the water gave a great gurgle. Her heart jackhammered. She clawed frantically for the door as the van sank, taking her with it as it plunged with terrifying speed toward the depths of the lake. Quick as a blink, the water closed over her, swallowing her, rushing up her nose, blinding her.

Holding her breath, she tried frantically to swim up through the sudden fierce suction that pulled at her from below.

Lungs burning, heart pounding, pulse racing, she fought valiantly as she was dragged down and down and down into the dark, swirling water. Soon her lungs felt as if they would explode and she opened her mouth to suck in air because she couldn’t resist the urgent need any longer, only there was no air anywhere and what she sucked in was water.

Lost in blackness, dizzy and weak, struggling until she couldn’t any longer, Charlie saw beautiful shimmery stars pinwheeling through the darkness in front of her eyes and felt the cold water rushing past her turn warm and comforting, like a lover’s arms.

She could hear Michael screaming, “No, no, no,” in her ears as she died.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Seen from the green, grassy shore, the lake at night was beautiful. Its smooth dark surface rippled in the moonlight, reflecting the icy white sickle of the moon itself, and the glitter of thousands of stars. The breeze blowing in off the water was warm, and smelled of flowers.

Charlie felt happy. She felt at peace.

Even so, there was a tremendous amount of commotion around her. The red flashing lights of police cars ringed an area not far away. She could hear voices, cries, weeping. She looked closer. Although she was not physically near, she recognized the three young girls huddled together, the woman and two men kneeling around a second woman lying supine in the grass.

She even remembered their names: the girls were Natalie and Diane and Kim; the kneeling woman was Lena, and the men were Tony and Buzz.

The supine woman in the soaked yellow dress, with the heavy man’s watch glinting silver on her slender, motionless wrist, pulled at her. Charlie felt a drift of gentle sadness as she realized: that woman, drenched and drowned, lying unmoving and pale in the moonlight, was her.

Dr. Charlotte Stone.

She drew closer.

“I thought she was right behind me.” Lena sounded like the words were being ripped out of her throat. She was wet and shivering despite the warmth of the night. Moonlight gleamed on what looked like a tear sliding down her cheek.

Buzz slid an arm around Lena. His clothes were dirty, ripped. A grayish powder—ash, she remembered there had been an explosion—dusted his hair. “It’s not your fault. We should have come back faster. By the time we got to the Inn, saw your laptops still on the table, and figured out what had happened, Myers was long gone.”

“If one of the waitresses hadn’t remembered seeing a gray van tearing out of the parking lot and been able to tell us which way it went, we never would have found you.” Tony’s voice was hoarse. His white shirt was torn and smeared with grime, and he had a cut on his cheek. Like Buzz, his black hair was full of ash. His face was white with shock, twisted with grief. “I can’t believe we got to you too late.
Charlie.
Dear God in heaven, how could I have let this happen?”

The raw pain in his voice made Charlie want to reassure him. But Buzz and Lena already were, and then more people joined them, police officers and others, official types. She heard one of them say, “We’ve got divers down there trying to extract Myers’ body. It’s still trapped in the van,” and then because she didn’t want to hear anything more about that, she moved away.

“Charlie!” From out of the shadows Michael appeared, tawny hair washed silver by the moonlight, tall body powerful as ever, handsome face solemn and unsmiling as he walked across the grass toward her.