Trolls in the Hamptons (34 page)

“I won't—”

So she shot him.

I must have gasped because she said, “Tranquilizer darts. He'll wake up eventually, but we'll be long gone by then. Don't make me use one on you.”

I was limp, which I felt was marginally better than being unconscious, so I let her drag me by my armpits out the back door. She was stronger than she looked, so I really didn't have much choice anyway.

Vonna/Vinnie dropped me on the pavement and opened the car door, the Lexus, at least, with all its tracking devices. Grant would know where I was, wherever the bitch took me.

Panting, she hauled me up and shoved me facedown on the backseat. Red jumped in on top of me. I still couldn't feel my hands or feet, so at least I didn't feel the bruises I knew were forming.

She snatched the baseball cap off my head and put it on hers, to hide her dark hair. She took my sunglasses, too, and drove the Lexus down the long drive and out the gate, waving to the gardeners as she passed.

I wanted to tell Red to stop pawing at my head, trying to get me up, but my tongue still wouldn't cooperate. I tried calling Fafhrd in my mind, but he wasn't answering my calls, either.

I know we took some back roads, because of the bumpy ride, and went down a hill because I almost slid off the backseat. We drove over gravel, from the sound, then over a worse road, at slower speed. It didn't matter that I couldn't figure out the location. Grant could trace this car.

Except we stopped.

Vinnie Borsack got out of the car, slung my arm over her shoulder, and dragged my wilted body down a weedy path to an old rickety pier. I lost one sandal on the uneven boards. I almost lost my breakfast when I saw the sleek black-hulled speedboat tied to the dock.

Oh, no, not a boat!

She heaved me in, cursed when Little Red leaped after me, standing on my chest, growling and snapping his teeth. I shut my eyes—relieved they worked—so I didn't have to see her shoot the poor little dog for trying to defend me!

She didn't have time. She started the boat's engine and took off. Not fast enough to attract attention if any lobster men or paddlers were out in the bay, but fast enough to pound my back up and down on the deck as we skimmed over the water.

Oh, God. If I threw up, I'd choke to death. Which might be better than whatever the Borsacks had in store for me.

No, I told myself, Grant would save me. I had to believe that. I had to be brave.

Me?

But then I heard them, the voices in my head over the roar of the powerful engine. There was Mrs. Terwilliger from the library, and Joanne at the deli, Bud from the gas station, and everyone who'd called to leave messages.

“You are brave, Willow Tate. You can do anything.”

“You could have done more, dear, if you'd listened to me in the past,” came my grandmother's voice, but my mother told her to shut up, still in my head, although not as loudly. “You are tough, baby girl. I wouldn't have raised you any other way.”

Yeah, I was tough. I could move my toes now. Good thing, because we bumped against the yacht. Vinnie yelled that if I didn't climb up the ladder she'd tie a rope around me, toss me overboard, and lift me with the anchor winch. So I climbed the metal rungs, all six of them that felt like six hundred. I mumbled a plea that she not leave Red alone in the speedboat. Or worse.

She thought about it, then said, “He might make you more cooperative.” She threw him over the gunnel, onto the deck. I heard a thud, then a yelp. “Remember that. If you give me any trouble, he goes over the other side.”

Now I really, really hated her.

I cuddled the shaking dog as best I could, checking for broken bones. “Shh, Red. We'll be rescued,” I whispered. “Or we'll save ourselves. I have a safety pin.”

I raised myself up to look around. We were far out in the bay, past Gardiner's Island. Too far to swim, by a lot. Too far to call for help, and useless anyway since the island was private and seldom occupied. “We'll think of something.”

Except Vinnie made me go down a short flight of steps to the inside cabin and shoved me onto a padded bench seat next to the dining table. I took a swipe at her, and she brought up the tranquilizer gun, aimed at Red. Whatever knocked Parker down would kill the tiny dog. I nodded and sat still while she tied my feet to the heavy table that was bolted to the floor, and put one of those plastic cable things around my wrists. She put the box of cookies on the table within my limited reach—as though I would ever eat anything she fed me again.

When she went back up on deck, I looked around. Another bench sat opposite me across the table. On most boats they flipped opened to form beds. I wasn't sure a yacht this size and luxury needed more beds, because I could see a vast stateroom ahead, several other doors to either side, another room under the stairs. Nearby I saw a galley that was more like a modern kitchen than anything I'd ever seen on a boat, or cooked in. It had a microwave, what looked like a dishwasher, two refrigerators, floor to ceiling storage units, and an overhead TV. All the amenities of home except it rocked.

“I get seasick,” I warned when Vinnie came back, this time with a heavy suitcase and another bag.

So she plunked a bucket next to me.

I tried again. “The full moon is not until tomorrow night. Whatever you are planning won't work.”

She didn't pretend to misunderstand. “Plans change.”

“Uh, would you mind letting me in on those plans? Just so I can prepare myself, you know.”

She sneered. “You'll find out when he gets here.”

“Turley Borsack? Your father?”

“So you figured that out. And here I thought you were just another dumb blonde with a sappy attachment to dogs.”

I wanted to tell her I wasn't really blonde, only sandy-haired, and the dogs weren't mine, but she went on: “It won't matter what you know, or think you know. Neither Turley nor I will hang around once we succeed. I'll be back with Turley before dark.” Then she climbed the steps to the bridge and left. The boat rocked more when she jumped over the side onto the smaller boat.

“Wait,” I shouted after her. “Where's Nicky?”

I heard her laugh as the engine on the speedboat kicked in. “You're sitting on him, pukehead.”

O
H, HELL. They had him stuffed in a storage locker? Was he dead, and that's why I couldn't call Fafhrd? My troll knew his friend was gone so he went home? I tried to find the voices of Paumanok Harbor, to ask what to do, but they were silent also. Or maybe they'd just been in my head, brought on by the drugged iced tea.

I had a hard time standing up, with my ankles tied to the table pedestal, but I managed. I swiveled around as best I could to find a handle on the bench cushion. I pulled, my hands still tied together, and threw the seat back up against the cabin wall. “Nicky?”

He was still, and deathly pale, but he was definitely the child from the pictures we had. He was small and famine-thin. Had the bastards starved him, besides? I couldn't tell if he was breathing. My tether wouldn't let me bend over far enough to lay my head against his chest, and I couldn't tell if it was rising and falling with his inhalations or just the rocking of the boat. I tried not to think about that rocking. Or Nicky being dead, or no one hearing me.

“Nicky? Wake up, baby. It's me, Willy. I know I don't look like much right now, but I'm a friend. I have other friends who can help. Wake up, Nicky, please.”

He didn't. When I touched him with my joined hands, he didn't seem cold or stiff, so maybe he was just drugged. How long could it last? When had they done it? I tried shaking him, patting his cheek, tweaking his ear. Nothing. Miserable bastards, to do this to an innocent child.

“Come on, Nicky. Help me.” I tried to think harder, if that's what it took. “I know I'm no telepath, but I need you to hear me, love, to wake up. We can't let them win. We just can't!”

I dashed my bound hands at my face, to wipe away the tears. Red was whining at my feet, so I yelled at him. “If you have a better idea, tell me. Otherwise, shut up so I can think.”

I was too terrified to think. I sank down into a squat, half under the table, leaning against the wall of Nicky's container that looked all too much like a coffin. He had a cushion under him, a blanket on top, and airholes, now that I looked at the sides of the wooden banquette. So they hadn't been trying to kill him.

Of course not. They needed him. He was the Verbalizer. “So speak, damn it. Speak!”

Red barked.

“Not you.”

I looked around for something that could help, some inspiration. I couldn't lift the boy out of the box, not being tied the way I was. He simply had to wake up and help me. I couldn't reach the galley sink for water to sprinkle on him, or the refrigerator for ice. All I had was some suspect Oreo cookies . . . and a safety pin.

I hated to do it. Maybe I couldn't do it with my wrists tied together. I had to try, and I had to keep from dropping the damn pin out of my tethered reach. Using contortions I didn't know my body could perform, I finally, clumsily, slowly unclasped the pin from my bra strap. The tiny bit of bent metal surely couldn't defend Nicky, Red, and me from two maniacal murderers with guns and drugs. I doubted it could pick a lock, either. It sure as hell wasn't going to close up again, not after my gyrations. So this must be what it was intended for, wasn't it?

I jabbed Nicky's finger with the pin.

“I'm sorry. So sorry. I didn't want to hurt you,” I sobbed when his eyes opened. He cringed back as far as he could go. His eyes were blue-green, like forest and sky together, and big, so big with fright that my heart almost broke right then. I swallowed and stepped back, showing my bound hands. “I'm not one of them, Nicky. I'm a friend.”

He just stared.

“I know you can understand me. I wish I could talk to you mind to mind, but I just don't know how. I have friends who maybe can, and they are coming. Yes, I know they are. Meantime I need you to help me call Fafhrd.”

His eyebrows rose. His mouth formed an f and made a fuh sound.

“Yes, that's right, Fafhrd. You know, big, red, rock solid?”

Then I felt it, inside my skull. Not like the voices from Paumanok Harbor, not in words I could understand, but I got the gist. “Yes, Fafhrd! Your friend. He's looking for you, too.” I didn't have any paper to draw the troll, but I made a mental image and closed my eyes. “Do you see him? Tell him we're on a boat in Gardiner's Bay and we need help. I'll try, too.”

I had no way of knowing if Nicky tried. Or if Fafhrd heard, or if Borsack had somehow blocked any psicommunication to or from the boat, which explained why I couldn't hear the voices from Paumanok Harbor anymore. I decided the poor kid—and I—needed encouragement, so I said, “I'm sure he'll come. Or Grant will. Can you get up? Maybe there's a knife in one of the drawers and you can free me?”

He understood, but was slow to rise. If I could direct my thoughts and put venom in them, the Borsacks would be dead. He was skin and bones, with an unhealthy pallor, as if they never let him out in the sun to play.

He stood up, then bent down to retrieve something in the box, a plastic figure, maybe one of those transforming monster things kids liked to collect. Maybe just a game piece. I didn't know. He held it out to me. I shook my head. But, hey, if this was show and tell, I had the prize. I pulled the ring necklace out from under my T-shirt and showed it to him.

He smiled, and I felt like I'd won the lottery. He touched it, so tentatively. “Yes, it is from Unity, I believe. Turn it over. That might be the language you speak.”

He looked, then he touched his hand to his heart.

I touched my bound hands to my heart, too. “That's right. One life. One heart. There's supposed to be more, but I don't know it.”

He climbed out and into my lap, there on the carpeted floor of the yacht. Red jumped in his lap and licked his face. Nicky laughed. So why couldn't I stop crying?

We couldn't waste too much time reassuring each other. “Go look for a knife, Nicky. We need to get me free, and find a way to get out of here.”

The cabinets and drawers were all locked with electronic keypads. So was that big suitcase Vinnie had brought aboard. The safety pin wouldn't do any good. “It's all right, baby. Do you want a cookie?”

I remembered seeing Vinnie eat one, so I thought they'd be safe for Nicky. The minty iced tea had to contain the drug.

He chewed and smiled, then turned serious again. He patted my cheek, and spoke out loud. “I can't understand, Nicky. Maybe you can teach me when we're away from here. I can teach you how to play baseball, and swim, and pick strawberries.”