Tyler, no sentimentalist, was unmoved by this reunion. “Haul ass, both of you. We can drive around and cut ‘em off!”
“You do that,” Gage called back. “Me and Blair’ll hotwire the other boat and get on their tail.”
Tyler was briefly astonished. The kid had an idea there.
“Right,” he said, wishing he’d thought of it.
He grabbed the pull-strap handle on the passenger door and yanked it shut, then accelerated up the hill.
Distantly he was surprised to realize how much he was enjoying the feel of the fast car under his control- engine throbbing with 247 horses, oversize tires drumming, sports suspension giving him a crisp, firm ride.
Even now, in the heat of action, he appreciated the sleek, angry machine with a connoisseur’s relish.
He would have a Porsche of his own. Red. Or maybe black; he still wasn’t sure.
Either way, he wouldn’t be denied.
“Someone’s coming,” Judy whispered.
Barbara heard it too: a tread of boots in the hall.
She glanced at Charles, hoping vaguely for a look of reassurance or resolve.
He was leaning forward, his gaze fixed on her with peculiar intensity, his mouth drawn taut in a bloodless line.
The thought flashed in her mind that she had seen him look this way before-when he was reaching the climax of a jury trial, closing in for the kill.
Cain moved fast down the hall of the east wing, Lilith beside him, the master suite ahead. The roll of duct tape flashed as he tossed it lazily in one hand.
At the doorway he paused, breathing in, out. Relaxing himself, preparing for the work at hand.
“All right,” he said when he was calm and ready. “Here it comes. Divorce, American style.”
They were donning the ski masks when their transceivers crackled. “Hey, boss. You there Come in, boss.”
“Sounds like good news.” Cain smiled, unclipping his radio. “Talk to me, Tyler. Tell me they’re history.”
“No such luck.”
Cain needed a moment to make the words real. He felt his face sag under the mask.
Tyler was still talking, his normally languid voice spiked with urgency.
“Bitches are taking a cruise. Gage and Blair-he’s alive-they’re trying to hotwire the other boat. I’ll cut around to the park. Open the front gate for me, will you, boss … Boss”
Lilith just stood there.
“Do it!” Cain snapped. “The switch is in the foyer.”
She disappeared down the hall, and Cain stared blankly after her, wondering what else could go wrong tonight.
With Gage’s knife, Blair pried off the ignition switch.
His jaw and chin ached. Hot pain seared his throat. His voice box felt crushed. Nausea bubbled in his gut, the nausea he’d fought to suppress while he lay trussed and gagged, knowing that if he puked he would choke on his own vomit.
Hatred had given him the self-control he needed. Hatred of that blonde bitch who’d outmaneuvered him. Humiliated him.
He pulled out the metal plug, exposing a cluster of wires. No time to find a clasp to bridge the terminals. He did the job quick and dirty, jamming the knife into the switch. The steel blade conducted current across the gap, closing the circuit between battery and coil.
With a rumble the engine kicked in. A second later the stereo system snapped on, a Clarion marine CD player pumping out “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” by Manfred Mann.
Blair liked that song. He cranked the volume to the max.
Waterproof speakers shivered with the pulsing bass as the FireStar shot away from the dock.
The smoked Plexiglas windshield cut his visibility to nearly zero. He stood, peering over the frame. Spray washed his face.
The jet boat had a head start, but the gap would close quickly. Blair knew boats. The Sea Rayder was equipped with a three-cylinder, ninety-horsepower Mercury Sport Jet engine. Carrying two people, the boat had a top speed of maybe thirty-five miles an hour.
The FireStar, on the other hand, sported a V-6 Mer-Cruiser-five cylinders, more than two hundred horses.
No contest.
Ally glanced at the side mirror. “They’re after us.”
Pivoting in her seat, Trish saw a dark blur cresting the lake a quarter mile astern. Music pulsed above the motor’s roar.
As she watched, the blur expanded, its triangular outline sliding into focus.
The second boat, of course. What was the logo she’d seen on the hull FireStar.
The music was louder now as the boat closed in.
Gage climbed into the companion seat. “Some fun, huh”
Blair smiled at that. His baby brother had been plenty scared going into tonight’s operation, but the surge of power from the outdrive had kicked the fear out of him. He was a kid on a roller coaster.
Well, why not Riding a fast boat to a rock beat-it was Hollywood stuff, a celluloid wet dream, and the pistol in Gage’s hand only made it more hip, more contemporary, a violent image for a violent time.
“You know it, bro,” Blair yelled over the engine roar. “Some fun!”
53
Barbara pressed her ear to the crack between the closet doors.
“Gone.” She turned to the others. “They’ve gone.”
She felt an inexplicable lift of relief, as if there had been some personal threat, a menace directed specifically at her, in the remorseless march of boots.
“Do you think they’ll be back” That was Judy, addressing the pointless question to everyone and no one.
Unexpectedly it was Charles who answered. “They’ll be back.”
The words sounded curiously like a threat.
She remembered his agitation a short time earlier, the air of expectation in his body language, his intensely focused gaze. And now look at him-deflated, defeated, almost as if he’d wanted the killers to come.
A shiver kissed the back of her neck, tickling the short hairs at the edge of her coiffure.
For a moment she wondered … she asked herself … if Charles … could he …
He seemed to feel her stare. He blinked at her.
“They’ll be back,” he said again. “They said they’d bring Ally, didn’t they”
Ally. So that was it. That was why he’d leaned forward in anticipation, and why he was slumped and sagging now.
“Of course, dear.” Barbara smiled, dispelling whatever ridiculous notion had teased her thoughts. “Of course they did.”
Cain heard the Porsche howl through the front yard as he joined Lilith in the foyer, her hand still resting numbly on the gate switch.
Together they watched the coupe vanish down Skylark Drive, taillights shrinking.
He deliberated only a moment. “We’re going after him. As backup.”
Lilith blinked. “But … Mrs. Kent”
“She’s lived forty-three years. Another half hour won’t matter.”
