Blood, Ash, and Bone

CHAPTER Forty-two

I ducked into the dark woods, branches slapping me, Spanish moss sloppy and wet in my face. I tripped and wrenched my ankle, dragged myself up, kept running. I heard Jasper behind me. The first shots rang out, and I ran harder, trying to get my bearings.

The dockhouse lay ahead, the main house behind, my car outside its gates. But the three men were there too, and Jefferson. And Boone, I admitted, whose allegiance I could no longer trust.

So I ran for the dock, lungs burning, chest tight. Behind me, Jasper crashed through the thickets.

The woods opened into the cove, and I saw the dock, Boone’s sport fisher tied up at the end. I bolted for it, my footsteps pounding the wooden slats, just as Jasper cleared the woods. More bullets, two of them at my heels.

Too late for the boat. I ran for the dockhouse instead, yanked open the door and threw myself inside. I slammed the door shut, dead-bolted it. The dark loomed thick and heavy, and I crashed to the left, into the gear room. I heard Jasper’s boots on the dock, his footsteps uneven from the injury, but leisurely now, no hurry.

I had to move quickly. I slid open the outside window and squeezed through the spider webs and dust, scraping my skin. I couldn’t jump—the splash would have been a dead giveaway—so I shimmied down the piling into the dark water. It was high tide, but still the splintered wood and oyster shells tore the flesh of my hands.

I lowered myself into the water as lightning flicked cloud to cloud downriver. A few strokes took me under the dockhouse, then under the dock, where I surfaced beneath the slatted wood. Here it was shallow enough to stand, submerged up to my nose, the river bottom sucking at my sneakers.

Jasper limped down the dock. “I know you’re in there, cuz.” He reloaded, racked the slide. “And when I find you, you’re dead, you hear me?”

Shaking violently, I put one hand on the butt of Trey’s gun. I remembered the cell phones, both of them ruined now, and tears welled again. I prayed Jasper wouldn’t look down.

He remained calm, relaxed. Boone’s boat bobbed in the fractured waves, a thirty-footer with enough space to hold fishing gear for ten or marijuana for a hundred. Weapons too, guns and ammo and knives. And Jasper had the keys.

His voice echoed on the lake. “You run and your boyfriend dies, you know that?”

A crack of lightning, a roll of thunder, the rising wind, bladed and cold. The boat’s bumpers rubbed against the dock, and I heard the slap-slap of water against its hull, the ticking of its engine.

“He’s still alive, you know. For now. We had to hurt him pretty bad. And if you don’t get your ass out here right now, we’ll do worse.” Jasper raised his voice against the wind. “I will make him die so hard, cuz.”

The shivering intensified. I kept my hand on the gun.

Jasper moved from shadow to shadow, letting the darkness provide concealment. So he remembered I had a gun. He kept his own gun in low ready, like Trey did. Like professionals did.

“And it’s not like you’re going anywhere without the boat keys.” He examined the dockhouse, then plinked one shot into it, shattering a window. Trying to flush me out.

I wanted to hurt him, kill him, over and over and over. I fingered the semi-automatic. It would be smooth and accurate, even wet. I could kill Jasper, take the keys and head for…where? Until I knew where Trey was, shooting Jasper was his death sentence. But we were already dead, it seemed, both of us. The rush to the inevitable, one agonizing second at a time.

Jasper kicked in the dockhouse door, punching the light on as he did. He disappeared inside, confident now that he could get the drop on me. He kicked the door to the gear room open next.

I swam silently to the swim ladder and hauled myself up with my mangled burning hands. My sneakers squished as I took my stance with Trey’s gun—arms straight, chest forward, feet apart. I waited, dripping.

Jasper came out, framed for a second in the backlight. I squeezed the cocking mechanism, and he froze.

He gave me a twisted smile. “I knew you were around somewhere, cuz.”

I waved the H&K at him. “Drop your guns, both of them. Right in the water.”

He did, still smiling.

“Now the knife.”

“I don’t—”

“I know you got a knife. Drop it.”

He reached for his ankle. I held the gun on him, cocked and ready, finger on the trigger. Trey’s gun was like him—reliable and obedient and relentless. It would not fail me.

Jasper pulled out a hunting knife and dropped it in the water, where it disappeared with a soft plunk. He was being too submissive. Something was wrong.

“All this for a little old book,” he said.

He opened his jacket. I caught a glimpse of burgundy velvet peeking from the interior pocket. He pulled it out with two fingers, carefully, its gilt-edge dull in the night. He tossed it on the dock. It made a thump as it hit the boards.

“There,” he said. “All yours. You happy?”

I didn’t reply.

He kept his eyes on me. “It’s a piece of desecration. That old man in Florida took the Good Book and ruined it with the names of those traitors.”

“You’ve had it all along.”

“Only since my boys took it off of Winston’s dead body. Found it in the briefcase instead of what we were looking for. I had plans for it, but not anymore. Not since your friend Hope called you.”

He kicked it into the river. It splashed and hung at the surface, slowly soaking up the dark water, soon to sink and be gone forever.

“It’s a fake,” I said.

“I know. It would’ve been worth something, though, to somebody who didn’t know better. But this ain’t about money, cuz. That’s what you’ve been missing all along.”

“What’s it about then?”

“Honor. Justice. By any means necessary.”

“You’re quoting Malcolm X.”

The insult didn’t hit home. “He knew that much of the truth. The races must be separate because they are not equal. And I will no longer swear allegiance to those who have abandoned the fight for the white man’s rightful place.”

“You mean the Klan?”

Jasper’s eyes blazed. “Traitors. Prostitutes. Selling our name for profit, hiding behind the ACLU.” He spat the words out like bitter poison. “They’ll see. Judgment is coming.”

“Oh it’s coming, all right.” I held the gun on him with both hands. “Right in your face unless you tell me where Trey is.”

I squeezed the handle, and the cocking mechanism responded. Jasper shook his head, that infuriating half-smile twisting his mouth.

“You shoot me, and your boyfriend’s dead.”

“So you’ll be telling me where he is now. And handing over your cell phone and boat keys.”

Jasper pulled the phone and keys from his pocket. Before I could take a step, he dropped them, and the black water swallowed them whole.

“Doesn’t matter where he is now,” he said, “you can’t get to him.”

My vision reddened at the edges. I leveled the gun at his chest. He shook his head.

“You got a choice, cuz. We can go back to the house, get the car, and go get your boyfriend. Or you can kill me here, and he dies alone.”

I tightened my grip. Here at least it was one-on-one, and until I figured out where Trey was…

And then I knew. I knew it as clearly as I’d known anything in my life. The dropped keys, the ticking engine, the three men coming from the dock. Jasper’s calmness, Trey’s explanation of the one security hole at the ball.

I steadied the gun. “Get in the dock box.”

“What?”

“I said, get in the dock box.”

Jasper didn’t move. I put one bullet into the board in front of his feet and leveled the gun at his chest again.

“Don’t f*ck with me, cuz. I’m not that girl anymore.”

He opened the lid of the coffin-shaped box and climbed in. Mounted at the end of the dock, it was a tight space, crammed with tackle and netting, smelling of brackish water and bait. I slammed the lid on top of him and shoved a fishing pole through the latch to hold it closed. Jasper spewed obscenities the whole time, kicking at the sides, his voice muffled through the plastic.

“He’s dead now, bitch! And it’s all your f*cking fault!”

I aimed the gun at the box. I wanted to empty the magazine, give him a reason to scream. It seemed so right, so easy.

Instead, I put another bullet into the dock, inches from the box. “Shut up, Jasper, before I kill you here and now. I’m not that girl yet, but I might become her any second.”

He shut up. I shoved an anchor of top of the box for good measure. He’d eventually kick his way out, but his crew would find him first most likely. Still, it would buy me enough time to get a head start.

I jumped on the deck of the boat, shoes squishing, ears ringing from the gun’s blast. I put both hands to my mouth. “Trey!”