Coming Back Page 18

  Leon said, “Mick filled me in on what you’re after, but before I get myself to a place where I might get my ass shot off, I want to know all of it.”

  After Craig and I finished providing as many of the details as we were willing to divulge, the big man was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You know, it fits. That storage yard, they’ve got security on it, but not much. And you know which security company? Morell Associates.”

  “No surprise there,” I said. “And I’ll bet the operative they assigned to it was Bob Samson.”

  “Big blond guy? Dresses like a cowboy?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s your man. Any chance he’s standing guard out there?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Anybody else?”

  I glanced at Craig. We hadn’t told Leon about TRIAD, but given the circumstances he had a right to know about that too.

  Craig felt the same. He said, “There’re some other people involved. Rogue CIA agents on a mission.”

  The silence stretched out so long I half expected Leon to turn the boat around and head for home.

  “Hell,” he finally said, “I’ve seen combat. Army, Afghanistan. Paratrooper, airborne cannon fodder. You don’t wanna be there, but you put your life on the line anyway. I mean, it’s your country, you gotta defend it. But those pussy spooks, sneaking around, hiding in their bunkers in DC, taking women hostage—cowards, worse’n politicians. Man, I hate them!”

  I said, “So you’ll help us, even if we weren’t exactly up-front with you?”

  “Yeah I will. Whatever it takes, count me in all the way.”

  The near full moon lay a shimmery path on the water, dancing this way and that, playing tricks with my eyes. We encountered some higher waves once in the open bay between the two coves, but the surface of the mothball marina lay motionless ahead of us, the moonpath straight and flat. Security lights threw out a dull orange glow. The night had grown icy, and I burrowed into my down jacket. Craig was shivering—whether from cold or nervous tension, I couldn’t tell. Only Leon seemed unaffected by the temperature.

  He throttled back at the entrance to the marina and gestured to the right and left. “Circle Star, Circle Diamond.” He handed me a pair of binoculars.

  I scanned the area. No signs of activity, no other small craft tied up there. Both old cruise ships were dark, as were the others nearby.

  Of course, what the dark conceals…

  I handed the glasses to Craig. After a moment I heard his sharp intake of breath. Not because he’d seen something—because he was imagining Adah somewhere inside one of those hulks, helpless and afraid.

  “Which d’you want to tackle first?” Leon asked. “Star or Diamond?”

  “Your call, Craig.”

  His reply was swift and firm: “Diamond.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “For luck. Because if we get Adah out of this, I’m going to marry her.”

  ADAH JOSLYN

  The dead bolt finally gave, and she sank back on her heels, breathing deeply. She hadn’t realized how finely her senses had been honed till now. The muscles of her arms quivered, her fingers and back ached, and she felt the beginning of a cramp in her right calf. Quickly she got to her feet and put her whole weight on the leg; the cramp eased.

  For a moment she stood staring at the door.

  Open it and you’re out of here and into God-knows-what.

  Anything’s better than this place.

  She patted her pocket for the bolt. Grabbed and twined the garrote in her fingers. Small weapons against unknown danger—but at least they gave her courage.

  She turned the knob and inched the door open.

  Fresh air filled her nostrils. Not what she normally would’ve considered fresh, and still dank, but like pure oxygen compared to the stink of the cabin. Cooler, too—it felt good on her skin for a moment. Then she shivered. Silence enveloped the vessel; the dripping sound was faint behind her. She couldn’t see much. The light from the bathroom didn’t reach but a couple feet beyond the door.

  What it revealed were water-stained walls, capped wires protruding from them where fixtures had been removed. Acoustic tiles that had fallen from the ceiling. Threadbare brown carpet.

  Pure black to her right—how often did you encounter that? Usually there were shades of gray, darker objects layered upon the lighter ones. But this—it was eerie. Like waking up one day and finding you were totally blind. To the left, far down the corridor, a pale shaft of light shone from above.

  She went that way.

  CRAIG MORLAND

  It was a snap decision to search the Diamond first, and now he wasn’t sure it was right. The ship wasn’t big by today’s cruise ship standards, but going through it would take hours, and after all, there were only three of them. Meantime Adah might be imprisoned on the Star. But what else could they do? Flip a coin?

  The devil of this was the not knowing. Adah leaving him, Adah diagnosed with a serious illness, even Adah being killed in a car accident—at least he would know. But not knowing, waiting through days, weeks, months…

  It was the worst thing he could imagine.

  Leon Moskowitz said, “Craig? You okay, man?”

  Pretend it isn’t Adah out there. Pretend you’re still with the Bureau and you’ve got a job to do.

  He fingered his service revolver tucked into the waistband of his jeans, thought of all the times he’d been grateful not to have to use it. Thought of all the times it had saved his life.

  He’d use it tonight, in an instant.

  “Yeah, I’m all right,” he said. “Let’s go for the Diamond.”

  ADAH JOSLYN

  She felt her way along the dark corridor, hands snagging on rough wallboard, feet catching on tears in the carpet. The air had grown thick with a familiar odor that she wished she could ignore. Someone dead somewhere in here. One of the men or the woman she’d heard quarreling, likely.

  The faint light from above had to be coming down a stairway to an upper deck. The death smell was more intense as she advanced—

  She tripped. Went down hard, grazing her chin on the carpet. Pain zigzagged through her body and the air whooshed out of her lungs. When she could breathe again and her nerve endings had stopped screaming, she realized she was lying on a body.

  A dead body.

  Jesus!

  Her already queasy stomach roiled. She pushed back, reared up, grabbed something protruding from the wall for balance. To her touch it felt like a support for one of the handrails that customarily line a ship’s corridors. It sliced into her hand and drew blood.

  She told herself it was no worse than being at a homicide scene. She’d visited hundreds of those. But she had never fallen on a victim. Never touched one without latex gloves.

  She felt her hand. Not a big gash, but potentially dangerous in a place like this. When was her last tetanus shot? She couldn’t remember.

  Finally she hunkered down beside the body. Male or female? Male: he had a thick beard. Thick hair too. About six feet tall, she estimated, of normal weight for a man of his height. Down jacket, jeans, running shoes. His flesh was cool and pliant—rigor hadn’t set in yet.

  She read his face with her fingers. Bushy brows, high forehead, straight nose. Skin smooth, except for a scar on his right cheek.

  Her captor?

  No, that man had been stockier. And she had a subjective sense of him that would be hard to explain to someone who hadn’t gone through the experience. This was someone else entirely.

  She searched his clothing, hoping to find identification or a weapon. There was a wallet, and she pocketed it. No gun. If he’d come aboard armed, the shooter had taken it. Too bad; she could have used it.

  She thought back to the argument and shots she’d heard. How long ago had that been? Hours, it seemed, but her sense of time was so skewed. The condition of the body told her it couldn’t have been too long.

  Was this man’s killer still aboard? Wouldn’t he
have wanted to put as much distance between himself and this ship as possible? Maybe, maybe not. He could be waiting and watching above.

  Chance she’d have to take.

  Adah stepped over the body, felt her way down the corridor toward the pale shaft of light.

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12

  SHARON McCONE

  A few minutes after midnight.

  Leon said, “Better have your weapons ready. Doesn’t look like anybody’s on board the Diamond, but if somebody was, he wouldn’t be showing light. I’ll keep her at low throttle and maneuver with the running lights off.”

  I glanced at Craig; he was removing his revolver from his waistband, chin set, dead calm except for a tic beside his left eye. For a moment there he’d looked uncertain, vulnerable, but now he was back in his fed mode—a shield against what we might or might not find.

  My .357 felt solid and comforting in my hand. I’m good with firearms and have never hesitated to use them when necessary, but that doesn’t mean I’m infatuated with them. They’re a tool of the trade, manufactured only for one reason—and I’ve never let anybody tell me otherwise.

  Leon’s eyes swept the marina—back and forth, glinting in the moonlight. The power on the boat was so low it barely made a murmur. We glided smoothly over the flat water, the Diamond riding low before us.

  It was indeed a derelict ship, listing against the dock, coated in rust, deck railings mostly missing. The way it sat in the water told me that at least the lower deck—the hold and engine room—was flooded. There were no lifeboats or signal tower, and the bridge looked to be partially collapsed.

  I fingered the key tag in my pocket: C deck. Crew’s quarters on a ship this size, and if I remembered rightly from my one and only cruise, well above the waterline the Diamond had sunk to. Small cabins with no portholes, few amenities. And now in ruin. I tried to imagine being imprisoned in such a place. Couldn’t.

  Either this or the Star had to be the right ship. If we’d correctly interpreted the presence of the keys in Adah’s car and the messages for “Middie” on the TRIAD site. Wherever she was, Adah was still alive. I refused to think otherwise.

  And what about Piper? She’d somehow gotten lost in the other urgencies of our investigation, was mentioned only as the cause of Adah’s disappearance.

  I touched the opal pendant she’d given me. I hadn’t taken it off since her disappearance. Call it superstition, call it faith, call it hoping for just plain dumb luck. It would remain around my neck until I knew what had happened to her.

  Leon whispered, “I’m gonna cut the power off now. There’re oars in that rear storage compartment. We can row her up to the dock.”

  Craig was looking through the binoculars. “Still no lights or any other signs of habitation. She’s buttoned up tight. But there’s what looks like a long ladder lying on the dock beside her.”

  I said. “So somebody’s been aboard recently?”

  “Would seem so. The ladder is an extension type; given how low that ship has sunk, it’d reach to the passenger deck.”

  “I’ll bet it was brought here by Bob Samson. Convenient of him to leave it for us.”

  “Well, he meant to come back.” Craig’s voice was clipped. Expecting the worst, steeling himself.

  My cell phone vibrated. Irritated, I pulled it out to check who was calling. Not a call—a text message from the tech at Richman Labs. I read it, then whispered to the others, “The odd key on that ring was of a type used to lower and raise gangplanks on small ships. But why did Samson quit using it?”

  Leon shrugged. “That’d be the first mechanism to stop working on a rusted-out tub like this.”

  In any case, now we knew why two of the four keys were old and salt corroded. The new one for the padlock—probably on the marina’s gate—and the dead bolt had been installed by Bob Samson.

  Craig had gotten out the oars from a storage compartment. The power was off. I moved to take one of them, but Leon motioned me aside. “You watch, make sure we don’t slam into that dock.”

  Closer, closer, and then he told Craig to stop paddling and swung the boat around to port side. It stopped inches from a piling. Craig jumped out and started securing it. Leon followed. I stepped onto the rickety planks and went for the ladder. It was newish looking and not very heavy, but I was grateful when both men took over most of the burden. One thing I’d learned over the past few days was to ask for help when I needed it.

  I dropped down on the ship’s deck behind Craig and waited till Leon had followed. The moon was on the wane, but it still illuminated our surroundings. The deck—planks buckled, rotted, and missing—stretched to either side of us. Ahead was a corroded wall and a door with a porthole in it. There had been large picture windows aft, but all that remained was their frames.

  Cold here, and it must be colder inside. Adah hated the cold; Craig always complained about their heating bills.

  Leon nudged me. “We going in there?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure where, though.”

  Craig moved into a crouch on the other side of me. “Those windows aft—they’re all broken out, easy entry.”

  “Let’s do that.”

  We moved single file. The deck creaked with every one of our steps. If Verke or his TRIAD cohorts were here, they’d hear us and prepare a grand reception.

  A few feet from the first broken window I held up my hand to stop the others. I could see through it to the aft deck and a drained and fractured swimming pool. There were shards of glass—sharp and deadly—sticking out of the window frame. Craig and I eased them loose, set them aside. Then we boosted ourselves over the sill.

  Silence, heavy and empty-feeling.

  Safe to use a low-beamed flashlight now. Craig took his out of his pocket.

  The space had been stripped, but I could tell that once there had been a long bar with a mirror backing it. I imagined the honeymooners—Piper and Ryan—sitting on stools, holding hands and sipping exotic drinks that only people on cruises or holiday in the tropics order. Silly love talk and bright future plans and thinking it would go on forever. Lounging by the pool, faces turned up to the sun, and with not a suspicion of how it would end.

  Craig’s light pointed to the exit. And we went on.

  We moved through empty spaces, echoing and eerie in the flash’s beam. Craig held up his hand, motioned at narrow corridors to either side of the ship. I pointed to myself and then to the starboard side, indicated that he and Leon should go to port. We parted, and I found myself moving along what seemed to be a dark tunnel with no end in sight. Stepping carefully, feeling the walls. I had my own light, but its beam was pencil thin and dim. I had to train it on the floor to avoid gaps in the decking.

  To my right was a doorway. I paused, shone the light through it. A large room containing nothing but a huge pot rack on one wall, curved hooks like the upturned claws of a dead animal. Part of the ship’s galley.

  I turned the flash away and kept going.

  ADAH JOSLYN

  Her legs felt leaden as she inched along the corridor toward the pale shaft of light. For all she knew there were other bodies in here; the death smell was still sharp in the cold air. She measured her progress in the spaces between handrail supports. When she finally reached a stairway leading up into the light, she paused to listen.

  Silence.

  The stairway led onto another corridor, this one with once deep-piled blue carpet worn thin by time and red flocked wallpaper that was coming down in great swathes. A single yellowish bulb burned there. No reason for a security light here—it had to’ve been left on by her captor.

  She moved along the corridor looking through the open doors. Cabins, but unlike the one where she’d been confined, these had portholes. She must’ve been in the crew’s quarters. Another stairway, another corridor. More cabins, larger. She hurried past, found a stairwell midway down, and climbed to a large room that ran the width of the ship. Stood still and tried to get a sense of the place.

 
Main salon, probably, where the concierge and business offices were. Off it would extend spaces once occupied by the dining hall, bar, small shops, maybe a movie theater or a nightclub. There might’ve been a pool on the afterdeck. Shuffleboard courts.

  She sensed that only the Spartan remainders of the ship’s appointments existed now. The vessel howled with emptiness; all items with resale value must’ve been stripped years ago.

  Adah turned to her left. There was a round opening showing grayish light—the door to the deck and freedom? She started toward it, but her knee banged into something and she threw her hands out to keep from falling forward.

  What the hell was this? She felt a smooth, cool surface. Round bowl-shaped body. And a shaft extending upward…

  A fountain. They’d had a goddamn fountain in the salon. Probably too much of a job to remove it. As she gripped the shaft, a chunk pulled away in her hand. Not marble, but some composition material simulated to feel and look like it. She stuffed it into her pocket—evidence she’d been here.

  Another piece cracked off the fountain and made a noise as it fell into the bowl. Adah started.

  And someone else gasped.

  Immediately Adah went into a fighting stance. “Who’s there?”

  Silence.

  “Where are you?”

  More silence.

  “Look, I am fucking sick of this game! Who the hell are you?”

  “Who are you?” It was a woman’s voice, low and weak. Eva? Had she come back to finish the job she’d started in the stairwell on Tenth Avenue?

  “You know the answer to that! You’ve had me locked up here ever since—”

  “No. No, I’ve been locked up too.”

  Adah felt an odd tingling at the nape of her neck. Not Eva—another prisoner. “Piper? Piper Quinn?”

  “Yes.”

  Well, thank God. “I’m Adah Joslyn, operations director of McCone Investigations.”