“Carew went into hiding after killing Franz. Nobody will admit to seeing him since. Your husband and housekeeper won’t talk to me. I came to you hoping you could help me find him.”
She wiped her face with a sleeve, fabric streaked with mascara. “How would I know where he is?”
Figured as much. I stood and stretched my aching back. I picked up my bag. It was mostly water now, the ice melting away. Just like my options.
“Brownie ran away one time.”
“He did?”
“This was right before Paulina stopped bringing him over. He was gone for two days, hiding in the abandoned boathouse.”
“You have a boathouse on your property?”
“It’s on the lake. Hudson’s father used to fish there. When he died, Hudson stopped maintaining it. He doesn’t like to fish.”
“Is it still there?”
“It’s jungle now.”
The boathouse was right where Crystal Samusaka said it would be, cracked stone walls held in place by a sprawl of thick roots that spilled down the sides like a melted scoop of coffee ice cream, ferns sprouting from the crevices.
I sloshed through shallow lake water. I’d given up on the trail, thick jungle making it nearly impassable. I looked back to see if anybody was coming. Stopped and listened.
I’d gotten a helluva scare when I jumped the wall, saw a line of uniforms with flashlights coming right at me. Rusedski’s task force had made the Carew-Samusaka connection, and a search of the grounds was under way. Wouldn’t be long before they made it here.
Rusedski was probably in the main house right now, grilling Hudson and Miss Paulina, the proud parents of a lizard-man serial.
I climbed onto the twisted dock, turned off my flashlight, and pulled the weapon I’d picked up on the way here, actually stopped by my place to get it. I faced the boathouse, honed in on dim light seeping from the window.
He was here. And time was short.
Dock boards creaked under my shoes. I gripped the weapon tight in my left, plastic bag handles hooked over my right’s crooked elbow.
I moved slowly in the dark, approaching the doorway, picking my way through tumbled stone and tangled roots when a loose rock rolled out from under my foot. I caught my balance, plastic bag swinging from my arm, the sound of crinkling plastic. I steadied the bag with my gun hand, breath held in my lungs, silence restored.
Did he hear that? I waited, listening.
Nothing.
I allowed myself to breathe, allowed my foot to take another step when a voice came from inside. “I can hear you.”
My soaked pant legs suddenly felt cold, like I’d waded through ice water. I trained my weapon on the doorway, finger sweating on the trigger. Wait for him to come check on the noise. Just wait him out.
Time passed, a minute, maybe longer.
“I can see you.”
Heartbeats thudded in my chest. Don’t believe him. Stay quiet and force him to come to you.
“I can see you through a crack in the wall. Whoever you are, you should come in. I don’t have a gun.”
His voice was calm. Soft. I didn’t move, eyes probing the shadows, my finger primed to fry the doorway with fire.
The wall lit with points of light, a bright light poking through a half dozen cracks and holes. I looked down at the constellation of light spots on my chest. Shit.
“See, I could’ve shot you right then if I had a gun instead of this flashlight. Come inside.”
I wanted to run. Wanted to be anywhere but inside that boathouse. But I had no choice. I had to see this through.
I followed my weapon to the doorway-a slanted rectangle of stone-and inched my way inside. The air was scented with formaldehyde. Weak light drooled from a portable light wedged into a cluster of roots that had conquered the rafters. The room was long and narrow. Floor-to-ceiling racks ran up each side with canoes stowed in several bays, one of the shelves converted to a sleeping space, pillow resting on a blanket.
I stood face-to-face with Bronson Carew, arms by his sides, his flashlight aimed at the ground. He glanced down to the missing part of my right arm, an out-of-kilter smile forming. “It’s you.”
I kept my lase-pistol on his chest, wondering why I hadn’t already wasted the bastard.
Black bangs hung over ink-centered eyes. “You can’t shoot me. In fact, you’re going to give me your gun.”
I caressed the trigger, itching to get this over with, but he was unafraid. Confident.
He twisted his neck to look toward the boathouse’s back corner. “Come on out, Ang.”
From behind one of the canoes came Ang Samusaka. He held a knife to his own throat, trickles of blood running down his neck and sopping into his shirt collar.
Carew reached a hand into his shirt pocket, pulled out an empty snail shell. “I told him if anything happens to me, he should start slicing. Give me your gun.”
Shoot him anyway. That was my first instinct. Who gave a shit about the Samusakas’ youngest? Punk was a junkie blackmailer. Screw him.
Carew put his index finger into the shell, made it dance like a finger puppet. “Give it or I tell him to do it.”
I had to pull the trigger. Kill him and plant my evidence. The Samusaka kid didn’t matter. Let him hack through his carotids. Why should I care?
Carew put the shell back in his pocket and held out his hand. “Gimme.”
My gaze turned back to Ang, knife held in his fist, blade pressed under his chin. Eyes dead as gravestones. “Ang. Put the knife down.”
He didn’t budge.
“Don’t bother,” said Carew. “Keep at him long enough, he might start obeying you. But I’ve been working him for a whole day now.”
Ang was so young. Barely out of school.
Stop thinking that way. He’s a junkie and a blackmailer. He was disposable. I couldn’t afford to let myself think of him as a victim.
A victim trapped in this hell for a whole day. Victim of a fucked-up home. A domineering asshole of a father.
Just like my father.
And Niki’s father.
Like so much of the misery in this world, all of our collective pain and anguish could be traced back to that one simple cause: assholes having babies.
Carew held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”
“Ang!” I called. “Put the knife down.”
Carew stepped forward, put his hand over my gun’s barrel. “Let go.”
I didn’t want to. This was a time to be hard. Cold. Ruthless. This fucker had to burn. Wu’s little girls demanded it.
Yet there was Ang, his death sentence tied to my trigger finger.
A cockeyed grin broke on Carew’s face. “Ang, this is your brother. When you hear me reach three, start cutting.”
Sweat rolled down the back of my neck, pulse kicking into high gear. Pull the trigger. Fucking do it.
“One.”
Can’t be helped, Ang. Collateral damage. That’s what you are.
“Two.”
