looping thrust, and with shocking abruptness Steve recoiled, his hands clearing the bag, left hand empty, the right gripping something small and shiny and blue-black.
A gun.
Jack froze, holding the knife awkwardly at chest height, the blade aimed downward, pointing like an arrow at the hull.
Steve lifted the pistol a little higher. The muzzle was a small black hole, an unwinking eye, staring coolly up at Jack from three feet away. Steve’s own eyes, gray and darkly thoughtful, hazy behind the sunstruck lenses of his glasses, did the same.
Jack took a long moment to speak. When he did, his voice was a hoarse rasp, sandpaper on old wood.
“Stevie…?”
Steve’s face showed no expression, no life. He might have been a mannequin, save for the jewel of sweat tracking slowly down his temple like a raindrop on a windowpane.
“Sorry, Jack,” he said softly, in the flat, pitiless voice of an executioner. “I’ve been one step ahead of you the whole time.”
19
Jack heard the words, understood their meaning, but could not make them real.
“Put down the knife,” Steve continued in the same unflinching hangman’s tone.
Jack had forgotten he was holding it. Fingers splayed, he let it drop to the floorboards. It made a soft, distant thump.
“Now sit.”
He retreated a step and seated himself on the sailing thwart. He waited.
“You goddamn asshole,” Steve said quietly.
There was pain in his voice now, pain that gave the lie to the emotionless expression he still wore.
Jack tried striking a light note. “Hey, Steve-o. I thought we were friends.”
“Is that why you were about to stab me?”
“Stab you? Hell, is that what you thought?” A sharp, forced laugh. “I saw some gulfweed tangled in the anchor line. Figured I’d cut it free.” He pointed. “Look for yourself.”
“Shut up, Jack.”
“I’m serious-”
“Shut up.”
Jack fell silent.
The boat bobbed slowly on the turquoise water. Pelican Key was a green smear in the distance. Jack smelled salt and moisture, felt the noon heat on his skin.
Sun and air. How much longer would he know these things? There was little daylight in a cell, and prison air stank of sweat and disinfectant. He could see what shape the rest of his life would take, a dismal, ugly prospect, hardly better than death.
Still, he might have a chance. Steve must have sensed the danger Jack posed, must have brought along the gun for that reason. But he couldn’t know the full story: the seven murders, the nationwide manhunt.
It might be possible to talk Steve into forgetting this incident in exchange for Jack’s immediate departure. Later the Gardners would hear the news and realize they’d let a multiple murderer escape-but by then he would be long gone.
His spirits rallied slightly. He had limitless confidence in his ability to manipulate and deceive. He’d built his life on it. And with it, he could save his life now. All he had to do “They’re after you,” Steve said, the words cutting like a razor into his thoughts. “Aren’t they?”
“Who?”
“The police.”
“After me? For what?”
“For killing all those women.”
All the breath went out of him, and with it, all hope. No possibility of a getaway now, no chance to stay on the run. Steve already knew… everything.
It took Jack a long moment to speak. When he did, the false levity was gone from his voice. “You told me you hadn’t turned on the radio or TV in two weeks. Hadn’t seen a newspaper in days.”
“I haven’t.”
That made no sense. Jack shook his head. His eyes asked an unvoiced question.
“There was plenty about it in the news before Kirstie and I came to Pelican Key. You’ve been making headlines for months.”
“Not me. It was all Mister Twister. Never Jack Dance.”
“But I knew it was you. At least”-Steve dropped his gaze-“I was pretty sure I did.”
“That’s impossible. You couldn’t.”
“They showed pictures of the victims, Jack. Some of them looked almost exactly like Meredith.”
Meredith. Finally he understood.
His voice was a whisper. “I see.”
“You’ve been killing her over and over again. Christ, you’re so sick.”
“I prefer to think of myself as unconventional,” Jack said dryly. Distantly he was pleased with himself for finding some faint humor even in this most extreme crisis of his life. “So you deduced everything from a few photos? You should have been a detective.”
“There was a little more to it than that. All the murders took place out West; I knew you’d moved to L.A. years ago. The girls were picked up in bars; that sounded like you. You always were a ladies’ man.”
“And you always were jealous.”
“Not anymore.”
Bitterness flavored the words. Steve’s face was no longer empty of expression; his pinched lips and narrowed eyes conveyed an unmistakable impression of disgust.
“Besides,” he went on acidly, “there were limitations to your sexual prowess, weren’t there? You never dated blonds. I remember your once saying you had a problem with blond women. That was how you put it: a problem. I’ve thought about that a lot in the past six months. Looks like you’ve still got the same problem, Jack. Looks like killing Meredith didn’t get it out of your system.”
Killing Meredith. Steve was right, of course. But how had he known?
“I thought you believed Meredith’s death was a diving accident,” Jack said slowly. “I thought that was what everyone believed.”
“It’s what I wanted to believe. Up until a couple of minutes ago, I was still capable of persuading myself that it might have happened that way. If you hadn’t tipped your hand, I never could have been sure.”
Steve reached down and retrieved the knife. He studied it, the blade turning slowly, a pirouetting dancer.
“I recognize this. You used to bring it with you on our boat trips.”
Jack swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, his voice unexpectedly thick.
“And now you were going to plant it in my back. Nice.” He put the knife on the seat beside him and lifted the gun a little. The blued barrel gleamed like the cresting fin of an albacore. “How about Kirstie? What did you have in mind for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
A beat of silence. The sun, hanging at its zenith, set the sky aflame. Jack wondered, in an oddly impersonal way, if he was about to die here, in this boat that rocked so gently, gently, a cradle on the water.
“You going to shoot me, Stevie? That the idea?”
“I ought to. I really ought to. My wife fits the pattern, doesn’t she? Blond, blue-eyed, fair-skinned. She’s another Meredith. That’s how you see her, right?”
