Poison Ivy (14 page)

Her world spun, but she didn't feel drunk. The last thing she remembered was working on her papers when someone knocked on her door late at night. It had been after ten because the porch lights that were on a timer were off. When she'd opened her door, someone stepped toward her. That was all she recalled.

She wasn't in her own bed or on her own couch, she knew that much. She was surrounded by a faint musty smell. Water splashed somewhere. Nothing felt or smelled or sounded familiar. Her head hurt. She felt queasy. The darkness was disorienting. She tried to sit up and slammed her aching head on something solid right above her. She tried to hold down the panic that rose. She felt around her. Wood overhead. She wasn't in a coffin, was she? Slanted wood to her right. The overhead, where she'd bumped her head, seemed to continue for a foot or so. Down to her right and left she felt the edges of what must be a narrow mattress. She moved her hands around until she defined her space and realized that if she slid her body out from under the shelf-like protrusion over her head, she could sit up. In the blackness, everything she could feel slanted in crazy directions. Everything was moving. Her head pounded. The sloshing sound reverberated in her brain.

“Is anybody here?” she called out. “Help!” Her voice sounded weak and echoed in her throbbing skull.

No answer.

Her strange world reeled and pitched. Her stomach churned. Wood creaked around her. Metal clanged against metal above her. A chain rattled.

“I'm going to throw up! I'm sick!” she cried. “Help!”

No answer.

She held her hands over her head to gauge the space above her. Every part of her body ached. Her stomach roiled. Water surged and splashed.

A boat. She was on a boat. She'd sailed a few times with friends and knew something of the layout. She was on the V-shaped berth up forward, where two skinny mattresses on either side met at the pointed bow. The rattling chain must mean they were at anchor and the anchor chain was tensing and loosening with the motion of the waves.

How long had she been unconscious? She had no memory between seeing the dark shapes at her door, reaching for the light switch, and this ghastly awakening.

She had to get to a toilet, and fast.

The V-berth was in the front of the boat, that much she knew. The toilet would be somewhere toward the back. Immediately to her right as she felt her way aft was a door. A closet. She had to hurry. She continued toward the back of the boat, unsteady with the boat's motion, past a table on her right, a settee on her left. Beyond the settee, another door. Found a handle. Opened the door. Felt around for the toilet. Lifted the lid, just in time.

She found toilet paper and cleaned herself up as best she could in the dark, not knowing how to flush the marine toilet, not knowing how to get water out of the faucet.

She'd heard enough about seasickness to know she needed fresh air. She felt around. Three wooden steps near the toilet door led up. Lurching with the rocking of the boat, she located a railing by the steps and gripped it tightly with both hands. Another wave of nausea hit. She swallowed hard and felt for a door to the outside.

Dear God, don't let me be locked in, she prayed.

A latch. She clicked it and the low door opened out. Fresh, fresh cold air washed over her and she almost cried with relief. She climbed up the steps into a semi-enclosed space. With her eyes accustomed to darkness, she could make out a roof overhead, windows on three sides, a steering wheel and console to her left. This must be the wheelhouse. Straight ahead was a wide, open deck. Beyond the deck the dark sea merged into the starry sky without a defining boundary. She felt as though she was floating in a gigantic snow globe with stars instead of snow.

A red light flashed above her, startling her.

She lurched toward the back of the boat, almost falling down a wide step onto the open deck. She had never seen so many stars, above her and reflected in the roiling sea that lifted and dropped the boat.

The red flash swept over her head again.

The only boats she'd been on, besides the ferry, were fiberglass sailboats. Here, everything was wood. The back and sides of the open deck were wood, about two feet high, wide enough to sit on. In the middle of the deck she'd almost stumbled into a chair on a pedestal, a strange thing to find on a boat. She looked up for a mast, and saw only a ladder leading to the roof of the wheelhouse. She was not on a sailboat. She knew nothing at all about power boats.

Still nauseated, she moved to one side and sat down on the wide ledge, and leaned over the side, eyes closed, hoping to relieve some of the queasiness. But she had nothing left to heave up.

As the boat swung back and forth on its anchor, she breathed in the chill air. Back here in the stern the motion wasn't as bad as it had been up forward.

The red flash swept overhead.

Until now, she'd been concentrating on her aching head and nausea and keeping her footing.

Now she felt anger. Fury, in fact. Where was she? Who'd brought her here? Why? She slammed a fist on the wooden ledge beside her, and a piercing pain shot through her head.

Another red flash swept over her and she felt dizzy.

I've got to think this out. Where am I?

Since the boat was at anchor, it must be in fairly shallow water, close to land. She looked off the stern and could make out only stars. Stars in the sky. Stars in the water. She was sailing through the night sky.

Stop it! she told herself. You're hallucinating.

The red light flashed again. The flashes seemed to be about four seconds apart. The boat must be anchored near a lighthouse. If they were off the Vineyard, which of the five Island lighthouses flashed red? She had no idea. The Gay Head light, she knew, flashed red and white alternately, and the East Chop light, she thought, flashed green.

She sketched in her mind the location of the five lighthouses, something every visitor to the Vineyard seemed to know. All five were on the northern part of the Island. Gay Head, to the far west, then the West Chop and East Chop lights, which guarded the entrance to the Vineyard Haven harbor. Then came the Edgartown light, which was well inside the harbor, and on the farthermost eastern tip of the Island, the Cape Pogue light.

She had no concept of how much time had passed. She couldn't tell whether it was early or late night. She pressed the button that illuminated her watch dial. After six. At this time of year this could be either night or morning. Probably night, with all those stars. Clearly not the same night when she'd been working on her papers. Was it the following night? Or had she been unconscious for more than twenty-four hours?

She turned slowly to keep from moving her head unnecessarily and looked behind her. Only a few lights dotted the shore, dark against the sea of stars.

The red beam swept past her again, and she remembered being told about the red sector of the West Chop light. The red sector warned mariners of shallow water and rocks. Where waters were safe, the beam showed white.

What could she do? She could stand up and scream for help, but she was sure no one could hear her. She was too far from shore, and besides, the noise of the wind and waves and the creaking of the boat were louder than she could possibly scream. This time of year, this time of day, no one would pass by in a boat.

She had no idea how to start the engine and get the boat moving. She was a prisoner and her captors must have known she'd be helpless.

She wasn't a strong swimmer. Even if she were, October's cold water would lead to hypothermia in a hurry. Besides, she'd been warned about the strong currents around the Island that could sweep her out of reach of any help.

A signal of some kind. Flares or an air horn. Weren't boats supposed to be equipped with such things?

She would need daylight in order to search the boat.

Breathing in the cold air, she felt marginally better.

She was beginning to shiver. She got up slowly from her seat, felt her way to the pedestal chair, and ran her hands over it. Almost like a dentist's chair with arms and a footrest. A fighting chair on a sport fishing boat, where a fisherman would sit hoping to reel in a giant trophy fish.

She peered into the starlit black water behind the boat. No rowboat trailed behind, nothing but blackness speckled with stars. Whoever had brought her here must have taken the boat, leaving her with no way to get to shore.

This brought up another question. How had she arrived here? Clearly, she'd been doped or drugged. At least two people must have been involved. It seemed unlikely that such a distinctive boat, a wooden sport fishing boat, had pulled up to a dock and her captors had carried her aboard. The harbors were busy. Ferries came and went into the Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs harbors, and the fishing derby was in full swing. Fishermen, on their insane quest to win the derby, wandered about night and day. Carrying an inert body would have been conspicuous.

Think, think. She passed her hand over her hair. Dampness had curled her short hair even more tightly. The boat must have been anchored here already, and she must have been lifted up into it. From another boat. A rowboat or an outboard motorboat. Or another big boat. One person couldn't have done it. Near the West Chop lighthouse, if that's where she was, she was a long way from the Vineyard Haven harbor.

But why would they have kidnapped her?

She was a teacher, wrapped up in her work. She liked her students and she knew they liked her. She wasn't wealthy, in fact she had money worries. She shook her head, and cringed at the pain.

She wrapped her arms tightly around her shivering body, then let go long enough to retrace her steps to the wheelhouse, then down the three steps into the cabin. There she braced against the door to the toilet. In the dark she felt around, found a counter with what seemed like a small stove on it. Felt around some more until she found a box of matches on a shelf above the stove. She struck a light and in the flickering flame saw a kerosene lamp fixed to the bulkhead above the table she'd identified on her way aft. The first match went out and she lit a second, lifted the lamp's glass chimney, and held the flame to the wick. In the warm light that illuminated the cabin, she looked around. The cabin was tidy and seemed more like a place where someone lived than simply a weekend retreat. Behind sliding Plexiglas doors she could see books, classics as well as books on navigation. On the floor, deck, she supposed, was an Oriental rug, a nice old one. The settee behind the table was scattered with several bright cushions.

She was almost accustomed to the swaying and dipping and rocking and began to feel better, even hungry. At least a full day since she'd last eaten. Perhaps she'd lost a pound or two. She'd been intending to take off about ten pounds. A positive thought. In the soft light of the kerosene lamp she opened lockers and found crackers and peanut butter, cardboard boxes of juice. She'd be able to make herself a meal. Surprisingly, the lamp had warmed up the small cabin like a miniature stove, and as she warmed, she tried to make sense of her situation.

But no matter how she tried to analyze what she might have done to deserve this, or why someone would go to such considerable trouble to kidnap her, nothing made sense.

She took stock of the food. There was enough to last her a long time. As much as two weeks, possibly. Even three. An ice chest held fresh vegetables and fruit, cheese and cold cuts. When she realized how much food was on board, she had the horrid feeling that the boat had been stocked on purpose to hold her captive for some time.

Perhaps this was a case of mistaken identity.

In the hanging lockers she found warm jackets. On the side of the V-berth across from where she'd lain, were two rolled-up sleeping bags. She wouldn't suffer from the cold.

A medicine chest. She opened it, took out a couple of aspirins, and swallowed them. After a bit, her headache receded to a dull numbness.

She had to eat something, and peanut butter and crackers didn't appeal to her. Something hot and comforting. That meant lighting that unfamiliar stove. She staggered over to it. The stove swung back and forth with the motion of the boat, and she realized that it, like the lamp, was held in some kind of metal cradle that kept it level even when the boat tilted. In the dim light she could make out printed directions on a plate above the stove that showed her how to operate it.

An alcohol stove. Pump it up with the plunger as shown in the diagram, open a valve to let alcohol run into a cup under the burner, light the alcohol …

She figured it out and found satisfaction in watching the flame flare up.

She found bottled water and a saucepan, and in the familiarity of heating water, felt a bit more in control.

The water boiled and she made a cup of tea. Opened a can of beef stew and heated that.

Once she'd eaten, she felt better. She curled up on the L-shaped settee behind the table with a second cup of tea, pulled a down sleeping bag over her, tucked a pillow behind her head, and found a book she'd read years before.

Before she opened the book, she thought of her two nagging concerns. She hoped Mrs. Hamilton fed her cat.

The other, and really a more major concern, was for the papers she was preparing for publication in the journal. She was on a tight deadline. When the caller or callers had come to her door, she'd had only four days to submit the manuscripts, e-mail preferred. What day was this?

She needed every one of those four days to prepare the papers for submission.

The tenure committee would recognize, when the papers were published, a wide range of knowledge, her exacting research, and her understanding of the requirement to publish. That was the one thing her tenure advisor had emphasized. She must have publications to her credit, and her list of publications was much too sparse. She'd already been rejected for tenure last year. This was her last chance. She wouldn't get another.

Publish or perish. Were her captors going to release her in time? If they only knew how important it was for her to mail those papers off.