Dark Light

watching. As I hurried through bare trees, I saw Chestra’s front door open and a man appear. His shadow was massive on the house’s gray shingles. He turned and pulled an object through the doorway. Something heavy. I watched him drag the thing across the sand, toward the waiting truck.

I was looking for my shoes. Where were my shoes? I decided, to hell with my shoes, and charged out. As I did, I saw the man squat and heft the thing onto his shoulder. A box, maybe…or a sack. He took a few steps, then dumped it into the truck’s bed.

I yelled as I sprinted toward him.

There’s an old fake film clip of a creature that woodsmen in the Pacific Northwest call Sasquatch. In the clip, a guy in a hairy costume turns to face the camera, pauses, then flees, taking long, deliberate strides. The man’s reaction was similar: in a hurry but not scared.

He crossed in front of the truck’s headlights, then gave me one last look before getting into the cab. No, he wasn’t afraid. Not of me—although I doubt if he recognized me. It was Augie’s NFL-sized uncle from Indian Harbor. The man who’d head-butted me, then kicked me with contempt. The big square face; jaw like a robot, the frozen smile. He owned the marina where Javier had been shot and killed. Bern something…

The name came to me despite the crazy unreality of seeing the man here. At Chestra’s house. After midnight in a storm?

Bern Heller.

What was the connection?

He slammed the door, threw the truck into reverse, and backed out of the drive at an insane speed, tires squealing when they hit asphalt. The tires spun again when he sped away on Gulf Drive toward the lighthouse.

What the hell is going on?

The box…what was in the box? Old papers—my first thought. The promissory notes. Even if Heller knew about them, though, they couldn’t be that heavy.

He had left the door to the house open. I stopped, and yelled toward the stairs. “Chestra? Chestra!”

Silence.

“Marlissa!”

I heard a door slam, simultaneous with a gust of wind.

I considered running upstairs to look for the woman but my instincts were fixated on the weight of the box. Why was it so heavy? Why was the man in such a hurry? He was running for a reason.

I had witnessed Bern Heller’s secret craziness. I saw the vicious little boy who lived behind his eyes. If he had kidnapped Chestra…?

I sprinted to my truck, shifted to reverse, floored the accelerator, and turned onto Gulf Drive.

I t was raining again. The old truck’s wipers squeegeed brief snapshots of the road ahead. As I drove, my brain scanned for a connection.

Bern Heller…Sanibel…Javier…Indian Harbor…Chestra?

No meaningful linkage.

Gulf Drive turned sharply toward Casa Ybel Road. I nearly missed the curve. If my truck wasn’t so old and slow, I probably would have skidded into trees.

It was the back way to the causeway bridge. A route well known to locals, but Heller wasn’t local. If he wasn’t aware the bridge was closed, I had him. There would be police at the intersection turning away traffic—if there was any traffic on this stormy night. I would pull in close behind his vehicle, block his retreat, and ask the cops to take a look: Find out what was in the box he stole from my friend’s house.

I was torn. Had he kidnapped Chestra? Or was she still in the house, possibly badly hurt, unable to answer when I called her name But the box…its weight.

The thought of her stuffed into a box, riding through rain in the back of a truck, was sickening.

As I approached Beach Road, I saw taillights ahead. I couldn’t tell if it was Heller, but the vehicle didn’t turn toward the bridge. Nor did it turn on the next road, Lindgren Boulevard—the driver wasn’t escaping to the mainland via the causeway. The vehicle was headed for a residential area, streets named after seashells, then East Gulf Drive.

East Gulf Drive was near a large rind of public beach, the lighthouse, and deepwater docks on the bay side, Ferry Boat Landing, where Jeth moored the Viking…

The Viking…

That’s it.

The connection. I had it. Bern Heller and Sanibel. Jeth told me someone had snuck aboard the boat, stole some things—it was Heller. Which meant that he was no stranger to the area. But why was Chestra involved? I had no idea unless…

The wreck—Dark Light. Her family owned it. Heller had seen the Nazi artifacts. He wanted them, so did his nephew. Somehow, he had found her. The linkage was tenuous, but it was meaningful. It was all I had, and if I was right I knew where he was headed.

I was right.

W hen I skidded into the parking area at Ferry Boat landing, Heller’s truck was there—a much faster truck than mine, because the big man already had the Viking’s engines started. No cabin lights or navigational lights showing, but he was easy to spot. The docks were illuminated by shepherd’s crook lamps, plus the lighthouse was only a few hundred yards away: a medieval-looking tower capped with crystal. Its revolving column of light was much brighter here, illuminating clouds above, and whitecaps breaking bayside.

With each revolution, the beacon exposed Heller as if he were on stage. He was dragging a bag toward the Viking. A very heavy bag, not a box as I had thought. When he got to the gangplank, he lifted the bag, swung it to get momentum, then tossed it aboard.

I was out of the truck, running, and close enough to hear the bag hit. It was a sickening bone-on-wood sound. Distinctive, even with the rumble of engines.

He hadn’t noticed me pull in. I wanted to come up behind him and take him by surprise. He’d waved a semiautomatic at Jeth and me when he was seasick. Maybe he was carrying the gun now.

Maybe…

Behind me, headlights blinked from low beam to high. There was another vehicle in the parking lot. When Heller turned to look, he saw me. I watched his expression change from surprise to rage…then to recognition. He knew who I was. I was the Sanibel guy who’d taken the Viking from Augie. It registered on his face, a mixture of triumph and satisfaction.

His turn to steal the Viking.

Heller stepped aboard the boat and kicked the gangplank free. Before he turned to the controls and got under way, he showed me his vicious smile…along with his middle finger. Then he nudged both throttles forward.

It was like the day we’d found the wreck Dark Light. The day I watched his nephew make every mistake a novice could make, from bungling the anchor to losing this vessel.

Heller had already freed ropes at the front and back. But he hadn’t noticed four additional lines that ran from the Viking’s aft, middle, and forward cleats to outboard pilings—spring lines, they are called, because they absorb shock and limit a boat’s movement.

Jeth had used good braided line, and done a professional job, anticipating the storm.

When Heller pushed the throttles forward, the diesels rumbled, propellers frothed the water, ropes and the pilings creaked…but the boat didn’t move. He gunned it a couple of times…waited, then hit the throttles again before he shifted the engines to neutral.

I was sprinting full speed along the dock when Heller exited the cabin to see what the problem was. I didn’t break stride. His eyes widened as I leaped onto the Viking and put my shoulder down, hitting him belly high like a linebacker.

The bag he’d tossed onto the deck was there. I nearly tripped over it. An oversized duffel bag, like a pro jock might use. I only got a glimpse as we struggled, but a glimpse was all I needed.

Fingers of a human hand were visible, protruding through the top. Long white fingers, frail looking in death.

Chestra.

My legs continued to drive Heller backward across the deck. I wanted to kill him. But not here. He was bigger, stronger, and quicker. He had proven it. I wouldn’t give him another chance.