Triple Witch (32 page)

Montague eyed Wade hopefully for about half a second. But Wade didn’t ask me to put the weapon down, nor did he do anything else to make Montague believe that he could divide and conquer. So that Montague, after that fragile instant when anything could have happened, slumped in his chair.

“Call Arnold, please,” I told Wade. “Find him and tell him we need him here right away. Then call Ellie and tell her we need her, too, and please not to wait until after she cooks dinner for George. Tell her,” I added, “George can eat here if he wants to. If he’s got any appetite after he finds out what’s happened.”

Wade did as I asked, then returned and without any warning slapped Ned hard on the side of the head.

Ned yelped and cowered pitifully, cringing as Wade raised his hand again.

“What’s the plan, Ned?” Wade asked.

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything—”

Whap
. “You think I’m going to let you get another kid killed? Think I won’t smash your teeth down your throat?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t—”

Wade closed his fist meaningfully.

“Wait!” Ned cringed, blubbering. It was awful to watch, but not as awful as what I feared might be happening now, out on the water.

“Okay, look.” Ned was breathing hard. “I was just supposed to watch you, so he could get a head start.”

“Willoughby?” I put the gun into my bag and slung the bag over my shoulder, worried about what I might do with the weapon if I were holding it and Ned told me anything too terrible.

“Y-yes. He doesn’t even care about the money anymore. He just wants to get away.”

“The money we found on Crow Island?” I asked. “That was his stash? But what was it doing out there?”

Ned gulped a frightened breath. “Willoughby stockpiled cash. I’d bring it from New York, he’d stash it in his barn, and then when there was a big bunch of it, Ken took it out on his boat.”

He frowned, appearing to think hard. “But he must’ve gotten nervous after he had Ken killed. If anyone came asking questions about Ken, I guess Willoughby didn’t want the money to be around his place, just in case.”

That made some sense, especially if the deaths were part of a general reins-tightening program: shut big mouths, remove incriminating materials, etc. “So he told you to find another hiding place.”

Ned shook his head. “No. Ike—he told Ike to do it.
And it was the last I ever saw of Ike, so until you two found the money on the island, I thought
he
had taken it.”

“But now the police have it, so Willoughby owes some very nasty guys some very big bucks,” I theorized. “Money he’s got no way to repay, and no time to figure out a way, either. Which he knows, because you called him and told him. So he’s running.”

Ned nodded. “I helped flush him out, actually,” he ventured.

“Yeah, Ned. You were a big help,” I told him sarcastically, and he withered at my tone; under other circumstances I might have found it satisfying.

“What about Sam,” Wade demanded again.

“Willoughby knows Arnold will be onto him about the murders, too,” Ned replied, “about hiring Ike for them, I mean, and for all I know killing Ike, afterwards.”

I stared at him.

“Well, Ike hasn’t showed up, has he?” Ned said defensively. “Anyway, Willoughby’s snuck away from that British guy who was watching him. He’s got your boy—said he heard from the crew on the
Triple Witch
that the kid had been hanging around. He told ’em to invite him on board.”

He gulped, sniffling. “So I guess that’s where he must be.”

Wade seized him by the collar. “With Willoughby on the
Triple Witch
, headed out to sea? What’s he going to do with him, Ned?”

“Nothing! He promised … he promised he wouldn’t hurt him!”

Wade let go of Ned’s collar; Ned slumped, fingering his throat. “Willoughby says the British guy’s on his way back to New York—that he’s already called
his
bosses. But they’ll be too late. And Willoughby’s promised to set your boy adrift in a life raft, as soon as
Willoughby’s safely away. So the kid’ll be all right. Mr. Willoughby
promised
.”

Great: a promise from Willoughby. Somehow I didn’t think I could put much faith in that.

Because I’d ruined him.

Twice. And he knew it. And now …

Now it was payback time.

Wade seized Ned by his shoulders and held him for a moment, visibly deciding whether or not to break his neck. Then with a sharp exhalation of revulsion and dismay, he shoved Ned into his chair again. “You don’t
understand
,” Ned wailed.

But I did understand, although of course by now it was way too late: for the Mumfords and Hallie Quinn, for Ike Forepaugh, and possibly for Peter Mulligan, too.

I only hoped that by some unlikely chance or blessing it was not too late for Sam.

47
Ellie pulled the Land Rover to a halt and swung out of the cab. I grabbed my satchel containing my cell phone, the Bisley, and the smaller weapon; for this kind of emergency I had not known what I might need, and I’d have brought along an elephant gun if I’d had one.

She was already in the boat by the time I got onto the finger pier. I jumped in, she gave the starter cord a pull, and we were away. Aiming the boat past the dock’s end she turned to starboard, gunning the Evinrude; the boat’s prow lifted, then settled as we ran northeastward, toward the light on Deer Island.

The water was as bright as aluminum foil, the moon overhead so luminous that it blotted out the stars. But to the southwest at Lubec, an ominous pale curtain
turned the bridge lamps to smeary gleams, and on the horizon the clouds marched, darkly threatening, into Passamaquoddy Bay.

I waved at the ominous-looking front. Ellie nodded in reply. “I checked the weather radio,” she called. “Line of squalls. We might have to make land, later. But we’re okay for right now.”

Fabulous. Even if Willoughby kept his unlikely promise and set Sam adrift, a life raft wouldn’t last long in heavy seas. And Sam was a good swimmer, but you don’t have to drown, around here, to die in the icy water; even in summer, hypothermia can get you long before your energy gives out.

“Wade’s down at the Coast Guard station, now,” I shouted over the roar of the outboard. The boat slammed through the increasing wave action as we approached Old Sow. The whirlpool, shoving and sucking with the force of a billion gallons of water, can lift a ferry six feet out of the water, then slurp it swirlingly downward the same distance. There is even an Old Sow Survivors’ Club.

Which, I gathered, I was about to join; Ellie made no move to avoid the worst of the turbulence, and I swallowed my protest.

“We see his lights, I’m going to get on the phone to him.”

Willoughby, I meant; under the threat of another headslap from Wade, Montague had given me the number to raise the
Triple Witch
.

“I’ve got to try,” I shouted, gripping the gunwales as the water beneath us churned, “to negotiate. It won’t do any good in the long run but it might stall him.”

The Evinrude’s prop whined as it flew up out of the water, strained and gurgled laboriously as it bit into the chop again. A green wave rose up and slapped me chillingly in the face, filling my mouth with salt.

“Right,” Ellie called. To handle the boat in this water was a muscle-busting task, but her voice betrayed no
trace of the strain she was putting forth. “There they are.”

The
Triple Witch
looked lit up like a Christmas tree. “They’re beyond Head Harbor’s light.”

“I see.” Ellie’s reply was grim, underlining what I already knew: zooming around Passamaquoddy Bay in an open boat was one thing in daylight and good weather, something else in darkness with a line of squalls marching in. We could follow for as long as our fuel lasted, but if we did, we’d be too far from shore to make land when the storm hit us.

Ellie gunned the Evinrude through the last turbulence, then cursed as we struck a vicious eddy. The boat swerved, tilting as water hammered over the stern, twisting the wooden craft nastily before sucking it abruptly downward. For a horrid instant the seas loomed
above
me on both sides, preparing to swallow us.

Then we bobbed up as, capriciously, the bay spat us out again. When I looked back at Ellie, she was drenched, her red hair plastered to her neck, her white fist gripping the throttle.

“Golly bejesus,” she grated out through a clenched grin.

The fog advanced stealthily, thickening as it came, and the new calm settling on the water felt unnatural. Dead ahead, the tall white shape of the Head Harbor lighthouse loomed like a ghostly pillar, its brilliant beam strafing the rocks and the entrance to the harbor. Between the jagged rocks of the lighthouse promontory and land’s end was a wide patch of inky darkness.

“I’m calling,” I said, fumbling for the cell phone, “before he spots us and does something hasty.”

I didn’t let the thought continue as I punched in the codes. Willoughby was going to set Sam adrift, all right, but I doubted he’d bother with a life raft. Sam’s only chance was to be alive when he hit the water, and for us
to get him out before the cold killed him. Otherwise, he was—

“Fish food.” Willoughby’s voice came clearly through the cellular, full of its usual arrogance. “That’s what this kid of yours is going to be, if you keep being uncooperative.”

I swallowed hard. “Come on, Willoughby, you can’t expect me not to try to get him back. That’s all I’m doing out here, so why don’t you just let me come and get him?”

“No.” He snapped it out furiously. “I said all I want is to get away clean, and I meant it. I said I’d drop the kid in a raft. And I’ll keep my promise,” he lied smoothly, “unless you get in my way, Jacobia Tiptree.”

He said my name as if spitting out mouthfuls of filthy stuff. “The way,” he added chillingly, “you did, before.”

“Listen, Willoughby, all that was just business. You had a job, I had one, too. You know how it is, nothing personal.”

As soon as I’d said it, I wished I hadn’t. To Willoughby, his business
was
personal, and so was his hatred of me. I could hear it in the bitterness of his reply.

“Sure.” His chuckle was like a drop of poison. “But that’s not how Dysbart sees it. I can’t replace that money. His bosses have recalled him while things are in an uproar here. But he’ll be back to kill me if he can. It’s his job.”

“Dysbart?” The name rang a bell, ominously:

Never seen, shadowy and deadly, an enforcer. When I’d had the guard dog, back in Manhattan, it was Reginald Dysbart the dog was guarding against.

Willoughby’s voice changed threateningly. “Just stay back. Let me hear that engine of yours throttle down.”

I waved at Ellie; she twisted the throttle lower. The little wooden boat slowed sickeningly, keeping me from getting nearer to Sam. Keeping Willoughby where he wanted to be: in control.

“I don’t have to get much farther. I’ve got a plane waiting in Canada, you don’t need to know where. So just stay back and I’ll read you our coordinates, so you can locate the life raft.”

He read me the numbers and letters that would place him on a chart; I scribbled them, squinting as the gathering clouds pulled a shroud over the moon.

“I’ll signal you. And then you can come and get him where I’ve put him into the water.”

It wouldn’t be that easy even if Willoughby did what he said. Once they got here, the Coast Guard could use the coordinates to create a search sector. But the currents were terrific, the tide was flowing, and the wind kept rising; Sam could drift quite a distance before anyone found him.

If they did. Time was what I needed; time and a clear thought. What did this bastard want?

Revenge, of course: to hit me where it hurt. He wanted to see Sam go into the water, but more, Willoughby wanted
me
to see it.

Then he would be happy, because Baxter Willoughby at heart was the equivalent of a playground bully. It wasn’t enough just to do bad things; someone had to know.

That was how I’d caught him the first time; he hadn’t covered his tracks quite well enough. Willoughby always had wanted someone to know how clever he’d been, how powerful he was.

So: he was a bully and a braggart, and he was impatient. None of these qualities, combined with his current desperation, made me feel confident of our prospects.

But they were something. “Throttle up,” I told Ellie. “Let’s get out there right now.”

In the last of the moonlight, her eyebrows went up, but she did it. “Hey,” Willoughby’s protest barked from the cell phone.

“We’re coming out,” I told him. “I want to see my
son alive before I agree to anything. Once I do, we’ll back off. We won’t interfere with you. But first I want to see Sam on deck, under a light, so I know it’s him and that he’s okay.”

Grudgingly, Willoughby assented. But I heard the falseness in his voice, the hint of glee he was too thrilled to be able to conceal. It was working out just as he’d hoped; I was chasing him, he thought, until he’d caught me.

In only a few minutes, he could have his precious revenge. He could watch me as I watched my son die. For that, I knew, was what Baxter Willoughby intended: to make sure Sam never came out of the icy water again.

Up ahead, the light at Head Harbor solidified into a slowly revolving silvery sword, cutting through the darkness. I could see rocks at the foot of the promontory, waves crashing against them, sending up gouts of foam.

Ellie steered suddenly at them. “Get up in the prow,” she ordered quietly. “Do it,” she said.

“But—” I waved the cell phone. “Willoughby’s waiting for us. We don’t have to—”

“Waiting, yeah.” Her voice was harsh with skepticism. “Not a brilliant move on his part, though. Do you want to give him time to figure that out, and change his mind?”

The cliffs rose up on either side of us. It was just past half-tide. The thunder of the water through the constriction between island and promontory rose over the sound of the Evinrude. Beyond, the
Triple Witch
idled, illuminated by her deck lights.

“Have you ever really done this before?” I yelled, trying to keep the panic out of my voice.