By now the murder video was being beamed worldwide. Even if he could escape the FBI, he could not hide anywhere in the world, thanks to Swantor.

He had only one thought now. He wanted to kill Swantor and feed on his brain as his last act before being apprehended. Until then, he would remain here on this island to await the inevitable end.

Jessica impatiently paced the pilothouse as Captain Quarels's ship moved against the storm, the small crew pushing the cutter to its limits. Every man aboard had heard the news of what had happened on the computer screen, and a healthy hatred of their prey-both Kenyon and Swantor- had welled up inside them all.

Sorrento's phone call had determined that indeed Sheriff Potter had gone out to Swantor's island home, and that he'd found Swantor's missing yacht. But Sorrento's final call to Potter returned an ugly sound, the sound of the bone saw.

They had long since left the canal behind them and were now in the safer waters of Grand Isle Bay.

“ How close are we?” she asked the captain.

“ Quite close, a matter of twenty minutes perhaps. I'll have a launch ready for you and Agent Sorrento to board. I can't risk the cutter in this weather, and I don't think you want us taking time to make depth soundings. It can get extremely shallow along the banks.”

“ Where do we board?” asked Sorrento, turning from watching the storm.

“ Below decks. My first mate, Mr. Konrath, will guide you and take you ashore with two of my best men.”

A tall, uniformed officer with a boyish face, Konrath stepped forward, handing them each a rain slicker and saying, “This way, please.” Like the FBI agents, Konrath was armed and prepared to use deadly force.

Jessica and Sorrento followed him out into the storm, down the steps and past a bulkhead, and finally through a hatch and down into the ship. While topside, they had seen men working to lower a boat over the side. Konrath now directed them to an interior hatchway. On the other side of this door, they heard the pounding water and the thud of the lowered lifeboat.

Konrath checked his watch, went to a nearby phone and called up to the captain. “We're in position, Captain.”

“ Stand by,” Quarels said. “The island has come into sight. Searching for the right house and dock.”

“ We'll stand by.”

Moments passed like hours as the storm slammed the lifeboat into the side of the hull and they waited for the go sign.

Finally, the captain rang their position. “Konrath, we've located the dock-a police boat is tied there. It's directly off our starboard bow.”

“ We're on our way then, sir.”

“ Good luck and be careful. Keep in radio contact… Out.”

The two armed guards stood nearby. Konrath indicated the hatchway door, and one of the Coast Guard men turned the wheel on the hatch, and in a moment it was pushed open. Rain and wind stormed through the hatch, making it difficult to see, and just below the hatch, the lifeboat swung wildly in and out against the side of the cutter. Overhead, crewmen worked to hold tow cables firm to keep the boat from thrashing about wildly, but the cable was being given a battle by the wind and water.

Joe Konrath went first, leaping across the sometimes short and sometimes gaping space between the large cutter and the small lifeboat. Jessica was then helped across by Konrath onboard the smaller craft and Sorrento from behind. Finally, Sorrento joined them, along with the two armed crewmen. The only light Jessica could see at this vantage point was that coming from the hatchway they'd exited. A moment later even that small beacon was shut off when a crewman, struggling with the door, finally closed it from the inside.

The tow cables came off the boat and rattled upward and disappeared like angry snakes. The smaller craft bobbed and whirled uncontrollably at first, but in a moment the crewmen, under Konrath's orders, had manned the oars and stabilized the boat. Though they had an engine on the boat, Konrath suggested they go in as quietly as possible. The cutter overhead of them had long since shut down its lights.

When they pulled silently into the now-crowded dock, Konrath ordered the line secured. The nose of the craft nestled into the front of the dock and they disembarked from there. First Mate Joseph Konrath shouted over the wind, ordering his two men to follow his lead. He said to Sorrento and Jessica, “I'm taking my men with me up those stairs and to the house.”

“ Wait here until we've had a chance to check out the yacht,” said Sorrento, urging Jessica into the boathouse. The two of them climbed aboard Swantor's craft.

“ We've got to locate Potter. If he's still alive, we can get him medical assistance on the cutter,” she said.

“ And if he's dead, it's my damned fault. If only I could’ve gotten him to listen to me!” complained Sorrento.

“ Yeah, if the old fool had only listened to you.”

Sorrento insisted on leading the way down into the yacht. The rainwater dripping from their slickers puddled and ran down the steps ahead of them.

His gun in the ready position, Sorrento lost his footing, going to his back and sliding down the final stair and into the living room area. Jessica was blocked by his body. If someone should come from the control room the other side of the stairs, Sorrento was a dead man. She leapt over him and turned, her gun pointed into the control room.

“ Nobody here,” she told Sorrento.

Mike made it to his feet, his gun still held firm. Jessica looked about the room they stood in, filled with computer equipment and two screens she remembered well from Florida. Splashed across one screen were the remains of the Skull-digger's second-to-last victim, Selese Montoya. Jessica gasped anew at the sight and shut the screen off.

“ Oh, Christ… look at this,” said Sorrento, staring at the second screen.

Jessica gazed at the prone body in a yellow rain slicker with the letters that spelled out SHERIFF in black. The man's head was smeared with blood and bone that had caked his hair. Potter lay on his stomach, the back of his head splayed open, the wound obviously the work of the Skull-digger's bone cutter. “Sonofabitch,” Jessica muttered.

“ Was the old fool deaf? Why didn't he listen to me? Why'd he go near Kenyon?”

Sorrento went deeper into the bowels of the ship, kicking open each cabin door, his gun pointed and ready. Jessica sensed that no one but the dead were aboard. She held back, waiting for Sorrento.

When he was satisfied that there was no one else aboard, Mike relaxed his grip on the gun, put it away and returned to her.

“ Both Swantor and Kenyon must be up at the house. Potter must have helped Kenyon to get free, and that”- he indicated the screen displaying Potter's body-”that's what Potter got for his trouble. Damned old man. Why didn't he stop talking long enough to listen to reason?”

“ Shut it off,” Jessica said of the screen, but Mike continued to stare at Potter's body.

“ It's not your fault, Mike.” Jessica cut off the image on the second screen.

“ Tell that to my priest.”

“ You couldn't have predicted this. All you asked of the man was to give you a phone number. He wanted to play hero, get her off the island. You begged him to wait until we got here, and you tried to tell him to stay away from Kenyon.”

“ Let's get up to the house before these butchers kill someone else.”

“ Shoot to kill,” she told him.

He took a deep breath and nodded. “Count on it.”

Jessica and Sorrento made their way topside and off the death ship. Stepping out of the boathouse, Jessica and Sorrento found themselves in a renewed, vigorous downpour and alone. Konrath had taken his men up toward the house.

They rushed up the rain-slicked cypress boards of the stairs leading to the mansion. Jessica stared up at the house as she went. The place was cloaked in a kind of ethereal green darkness from all the ivy on its walls and the foliage all around the structure. All the lights were out except for one that appeared on the third floor. Ahead of them, they saw the cautious Coast Guard men inching ever closer to the house.

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