They were perhaps halfway there when she suddenly discerned the shadowy gray shape of a large boat, like
The Lady Dancer
running without lights, sliding toward them through the water on a course that would eventually intercept their own. At that distance it was impossible to identify it positively, impossible to make out distinguishing features, but Maggy knew, as surely as if the wind whispered its name, what the boat was.
“The
Iris
,” she said bleakly, staring at the dark hull that was closing fast. It was between them and the Kentucky shore. There was no going back. Giving up all thought of getting to the phone, she cut the rudder hard to starboard. They would have to land on the closest parcel of Indiana land they could reach and run for it.
Could Nick run? He had to. It was their only hope.
At least the
Iris
needed deeper water to dock than did
The Lady Dancer
. Maggy realized that she needed to go in somewhere shallow, beaching the boat. Lyle would have to break out the
Iris
’s dinghy to follow, which would take time.
Neither Nick nor David said anything. Maggy wasn’t sure that they realized the true extent of the danger they were in. The
Iris
, in a straight race, could overtake
The Lady Dancer
easily. Would their lead be enough to keep them safe?
Another wave caught
The Lady Dancer
and sent it scudding forward. For a moment it seemed as if they were flying through the water. Maggy leaned forward, trying to urge the little boat on with her own body’s motion. She was way beyond terror now, beyond anything except a fierce determination to save her boy and the man she loved.
She would not let Lyle win.
Six-Mile Island loomed just ahead. The prospect of making landfall there was briefly tempting, but immediately a tiny voice inside her cautioned no. If she did, they would be trapped like rats.
But she could use the island as cover, maybe hide behind it as she raced for land. Yanking the rudder hard to port, she sent the little boat scooting around the tip of the island. The island’s dense foliage blocked the
Iris
from view.
“They can’t catch us now, Mom!” David exclaimed excitedly. Then, glancing back, his mouth drooped, and he added, “Can they?”
The
Iris
had seen her maneuver and was following, full speed ahead. Maggy didn’t have the heart to answer David’s question. The knowledge was there, dragging down his face just as it dragged down her heart.
Grimly, Nick and David stared over Maggy’s shoulder as the fast-closing yacht came on. Maggy concentrated every atom of her being on getting as much speed from
The Lady Dancer
as she could. They were almost there.… Scanning Indiana’s rocky shoreline, she searched for a place to beach. Behind her, she could hear the pulsing of the
Iris
’s powerful engine. Another ten minutes and they would reach land.
They weren’t going to make it. Maggy already knew it even before she saw the huge dark bulk of the
Iris
looming alongside. Terror caused her to grit her teeth, made her palms sweat. David, staring up at the yacht too, was white faced, whimpering. Nick was pale, his jaw grim,
his eyes dark and dangerous. But wounded as he was, and handcuffed, there was nothing he could do.
The
Iris
pulled in front of them, cutting off their access to the shore. Maggy cursed and pushed the tiller over. They would run the other way, run all night if necessary.
A powerful light was suddenly turned on
The Lady Dancer
, pinioning the three of them in its strong beam.
“Cut the engine! Cut the engine or we’ll shoot the boy,” a voice crackled at them from over a bullhorn.
Maggy froze.
The Lady Dancer
was racing at top speed, but the
Iris
was staying with them easily, keeping them pinioned in the blinding light. From the sound of the engine, she knew that Lyle had cut back the power: the yacht’s full speed was no longer needed, now that it was through playing catch-up. Glancing wildly around, Maggy saw that there was no escape. The
Iris
had her cut off from land, and could easily outrace her on the open river.
The question was, would Lyle really shoot David? She didn’t think so, but it also occurred to her, from what Nick had said, that it was possible that Lyle was no longer the man in charge. Ham would shoot David if it served his purpose, she had no doubt.
The Lady Dancer
churned through the choppy water, straining for the safety it was never going to reach.
“This is your last chance to cut the engine before we start shooting. If you make me, I’ll kill the kid, Maggy. I mean it.” Distorted as the voice was by the bullhorn, Maggy recognized it: Ham’s.
“Cut the engine,” Nick said grimly. Maggy stared at him for a long, helpless minute. Then she did as he said.
“Good girl.” The voice came at her over the bullhorn again. The bright light shone relentlessly down. Shading her eyes, she looked up at the looming bulk of the
Iris
, idling now in the water beside them. A shot rang out, exploding in the quiet night. Maggy jumped, covering
her head, while Nick threw himself, handcuffs and all, atop David.
In the ringing aftermath, Maggy glanced fearfully over at the slumped figures of her two males, her stomach churning with fear. Dear God, had one or both of them been shot?
Before she could even call their names, Ham spoke over the bullhorn again, terrifyingly cheerful.
“Don’t worry, we just shot your engine. I don’t have time to play cat and mouse on the river all night. Come aboard! The kid first, then you, Maggy. Then King.”
Maggy glanced again at the dark deck above her head, able now to make out the shadowy figures despite the light glaring in her face: Ham with the bullhorn, Lyle beside him, another man—a flunky, Maggy presumed—beside Lyle. But not, Maggy thought, one of the same flunkies that had been in the house. This one was broader, stockier.
David was struggling into a sitting position in the bottom of the boat. Tears spilled from his eyes. His mouth worked. Nick lay curled around him, his eyes closed, unmoving. Maggy scrambled across to them even as a ladder lowered, and the flunky swung down to take possession of
The Lady Dancer
.
As the man’s weight rocked the boat, Maggy hugged her son, whispering frantically in his ear, “Go to Dad. Stay by him. He’ll see that you’re all right.”
“Mom …” David wrapped his arms around her waist, clinging, weeping openly. The flunky loomed over them.
“I love you,” she whispered. She couldn’t help it: her eyes filled, and tears spilled down her cheeks. Stark terror claimed her as Maggy realized that this might be the last time in this life she would ever hold her son.
“Come on, kid.” The flunky pulled David away from her, set him on the ladder. David climbed slowly up, was grabbed from above and hauled aboard the
Iris
.
Maggy shut her eyes and said a brief, fierce prayer for his safety. For
their
safety, all three of them. Saint Jude, Saint Jude …
“Mrs. Forrest.” The flunky sounded ridiculously respectful as he reached down, caught her arm, hauled her to her feet. She glanced up into a pockmarked, flat-featured face. His eyes were a deeper blue than Lyle’s, and didn’t look unkind.
His pistol prodded her in the side. “You gotta climb the ladder now,” he said.
Maggy glanced down at Nick. He still lay motionless on the floor of the boat, his body curled into a ball, his eyes closed. Had he fainted? Or …
“He’s been shot,” she said to the man, dashing the tears from her eyes with both hands. “He can’t climb.”
“Shit.” The flunky glanced down at Nick, then squatted beside him, feeling behind Nick’s ear for a pulse. “He ain’t dead.”
He stood up again, feet spaced wide apart to keep his balance in the rocking boat, and pointed his pistol at Maggy.
“Get up the ladder,” he said.
With a last, backward glance at Nick, Maggy climbed.
“King’s unconscious,” the flunky called up to Ham as hands grabbed Maggy and hauled her onto the
Iris
’s deck.
“Carry him up.”
“Shit,” came the reply, and Maggy caught just a glimpse of the man struggling to hoist Nick in a fireman’s lift before Lyle reached out and dragged her close to his side.
David was on his other side, standing in the circle of Lyle’s arm. The boy glanced at his mother, and then up at Lyle.
“Please don’t kill Mom,” he begged in a quavery voice.
Maggy’s heart broke. Terror had already frozen it, and now that pathetic little plea from her son shattered it into
a billion tiny pieces. Tears welled in her eyes again as she looked first at David, then at Lyle.
“I won’t,” he said, smiling that crocodile’s smile at Maggy even as he gave David’s shoulders a squeeze designed to be reassuring. “Go on down to the cabin now, David. I’ll be in in a little while.”
“Mom …” David’s eyes were dark with terror as they met hers. Clearly he was no more convinced by Lyle’s promise than Maggy was. But he couldn’t save her. The question was, could she save him?
“Go on,” she said sternly, nodding in the direction of the cabin. Head hanging, footsteps dragging, David obeyed. Maggy bit her lip as she watched him go. Whatever happened, David would be better out of the way. Out of the line of fire.
“Scuttle the little boat.”
Nick was dumped on the deck on his side and lay there, motionless. The flunky went back down the ladder to carry out Ham’s order, while Lyle, dragging Maggy by the hand, moved aft to poke at Nick with a booted foot.
“I hope he comes to in time to know who it is who’s blowing his brains out.”
The flunky reappeared, stepping onto the deck. Ham glanced at him, and he nodded. Then Ham turned to Lyle.
“Get us out of here.”
“Aye, aye,” Lyle said, grinning.
Releasing Maggy’s hand, Lyle moved toward the controls, and seconds later the
Iris
was under way again. Maggy braced herself against the forward movement, gripping the metal rail beside her for support. Ham had his pistol trained on Maggy. Almost at her feet, the flunky crouched over Nick.
“Where’s the kid?” Ham asked, frowning.
“I sent him down to the cabin.” Lyle spoke over his shoulder. He was in his element, the wind whipping his fair hair back away from his face, his expression relaxed.
Lyle liked nothing better than being at the wheel of his yacht, and it was obvious that he was enjoying himself hugely.
“
Get him
!” Ham’s order to the flunky reverberated like a shot. Maggy stood transfixed as the man obediently headed into the cabin after David.
“I don’t want my boy watching while we blow these two away,” Lyle objected, frowning.
“You are the stupidest …” Ham spoke through his teeth.
“
The little shit was on the radio!
” The flunky reappeared in the cabin doorway, hauling David after him with a fist hooked in the neck of his pajamas. David looked scared to death, but also oddly triumphant. Maggy’s blood ran cold.
“
Fuck!
” Ham exploded, kicking the wooden rim of the deck, his face apoplectic as he turned on Lyle. “You stupid son of a bitch! You sent the kid to a cabin
where there’s a radio
?”
“It’s a CB. I can’t believe …” Lyle glanced at David in a way that boded no good for him. “Did you raise anybody, son?”
The question was deceptively gentle. Still in the grip of the flunky, David shook his head.
“You see? No harm done,” Lyle said to Ham, relaxing again.
“No harm done?” Ham was visibly livid. “
No harm done
? You’re obsessed, you dumb shit. You’re obsessed with a fucking kid who’s not even yours, and you’re going to drag us all down because of it! Well, not me. Not me! Do you hear, you stupid son of a bitch?
Not me!
”
Ham was standing beside Lyle by that time, practically yelling in his face. Without warning, his arm flashed up, and there was a deafening report. Maggy watched, thunderstruck, as Lyle was lifted off his feet and flung backward as if by an invisible giant hand. He hit the deck with a thud and lay flat on his back, motionless, face pale in the
moonlight, eyes wide and staring, a tiny black hole in his forehead the only visible mark of harm. Beneath his head a dark liquid pool began to spread.…
Blood.
Ham had shot Lyle in the head. Even as Maggy registered it, David broke away from the flunky and ran to her side.
“Mom!”
“Don’t look, David,” she said, holding him close, pushing his face into her sweater.
Maggy caught her breath in horror as Ham turned his pistol on them.…
Nick exploded with a roar, coming up off the deck with his feet beneath him and launching himself at Ham. The sheer force of his body knocked the smaller man down. Ham’s pistol flew from his hand and landed close to Maggy’s feet.
Even as the flunky was running to Ham’s rescue, Maggy wrenched herself away from David and scrambled for the pistol. She scooped it up and bounded forward, shoved the nozzle into the flunky’s nape and pulled the trigger.
The gun bucked in her hand. The boom deafened her. Blood and matter splattered over the struggling figures like pulp from an exploding watermelon. The flunky crumpled to the deck. Maggy leapt over his fallen body and took a precious few seconds to gauge the relative positions of the men on the deck.
Ham was on top, his hands around Nick’s throat. Nick, his face already purpling from lack of oxygen, was trying to heave Ham off him with great upward lunges of his body.
Maggy jammed the mouth of the pistol into Ham’s spine.
“Ham,” she said, and meant it, “let go, or die.”
Ham froze. Then, after a long moment, his hands lifted from around Nick’s neck.
“Maggy,” he began uneasily, glancing at her over his shoulder.
“Back away from him, Magdalena.” Nick was panting. “Back away from him, but keep the pistol on him. If he so much as looks at you funny, blow him to hell.”