Blood, Ash, and Bone

CHAPTER Forty-three

I did a quick survey—twenty feet of deck space, a head, the engine compartment, the pilot station. Fish cleaning area, gear boxes. Lots of hidden places too, for stashing contraband and weapons.

“Trey! Where are you?”

No answer. So I started with the engine compartment, dark and dank and smelling of oil. I pulled out my phone, and Trey’s. Both were soaked and ruined, as I expected.

“Trey!” I yelled again.

I almost didn’t hear it. One thump, then another, coming from the head. I yanked at the door. Deadbolted.

“Hang on, I’m coming!”

I took a quick inventory—oil cans, boxes, ropes. Then I saw the gaff hook. I hoisted it, and beat at the lock until it snapped. I snatched open the door, hit the light.

Trey raised his head. He was bound in the corner, back against the wall, hands behind his back. He was barefoot, his ankles duct-taped. They’d taped his mouth too, but his eyes blazed in the dingy light

I scrambled down the steps and fell to my knees in front of him. “Oh God, are you okay?”

He nodded. But he wasn’t okay. He was in bad shape, his face mottled with blood. I steadied myself against the rising shock.

“Hang on.” I reached for him. “I’m gonna get your mouth.”

I grabbed the tape and tried to peel it off easy. Trey glared at me and stamped his feet. So I ripped it off in one slash. He exhaled sharply, his eyes watering as he coughed.

“Where’s Jasper?” he said.

“Locked in the dock box.”

“And the other three?”

“Up at the house. Are you okay?”

“Get a knife.”

I scrambled back up the stairs to the fish cleaning station. I yanked open the drawer and pulled out a serrated knife, then clambered back down the steps and fell at his feet once more. I sawed at the tape, trying not to see the bruises, the slicing wounds.

His voice was raw. “They’re Savannah metro, all three. One’s the sniper. ”

“I know.” I moved behind him with the knife only to see handcuffs. “Oh shit. Now what?”

“Give me a bobby pin.”

It took me a second to make the connection. I sank my fingers into my tangled hair and pulled out a pin.

“Put it in my hands,” he said.

I did as he asked. He stayed calm, his brow furrowed in concentration, but his eyes were electric.

He looked up at me. “Boone isn’t a part of this. He doesn’t know.”

In the distance, I heard the pop-pop of gunfire, muffled yelling. My stomach dropped.

“He knows now.”

Trey brought his hands forward and shook them out. His wrists were bloody and raw. He tried to stand, toppling as his legs gave way beneath him. I grabbed his shoulder to catch him, and he sucked in a jagged breath of pain.

“Trey?”

“Broken rib. We need to—”

The sputter of the radio on the bridge interrupted him. I heard Boone’s voice, crackling and urgent. “Tai! Answer me, girl!”

I ran up the steps and snatched the radio. “Boone! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Where are you?”

“At the dock, with Trey. I—”

“Get the hell out. Me and Jefferson got one, but the other two are headed your way. Where’s Jasper?”

“Locked in the dock box.”

“You kill him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s a dead man anyway.” Boone coughed, then spat, his voice rough. “Get to open water. And don’t call for help. These guys are cops. They have friends we don’t know about. If they hear a call go out…”

“I know. Can you get to the dock?”

Trey limped to the wheel, breathing hard, listening. The rain hissed, and another fork of lightning split the darkness.

Boone coughed again. “No, but we got things under control here. Go!”

“But—”

“Go, I said!”

In the distance I heard shouting and more gunfire. I shoved past Trey and hit the dock. I unhitched the dock line and threw it into the boat. Then I went to the console, remembering Jasper’s smug expression as he’d dropped the keys into the water. He’d always underestimated me, the chauvinistic pig.

I pulled open the access panel. Reached in and snatched the wires off the back of the keyswitch, twisted the power wires together and touched them to the starter. The motor sputtered, and I moved to the wheel. I slid it into gear then threw open the throttle, and the boat roared into the dark river. Behind me, I heard Trey slam into the rail.

I looked over my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine!”

He pulled himself upright, then lurched for the cleaning station. He yanked at the drawer, tumbling silverware all over the floor. Another thump, heavy, flesh against wood.

I picked up the radio again. “Boone! You there?”

“Still here. You on the water?”

“Good and gone. What the hell is going on?”

“Jasper decided to have himself a little armed rebellion against the Klan. Jeff’s here with me. He says this is about some speech, that the selectmen council—”

I heard gunshots at Boone’s end, Jefferson yelling.

“Boone!”

“It’s okay, they can’t get in here.”

“Call for help, Boone.”

“Like hell! He’s got the cops in on this, the ignorant—”

“You got a cell phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Look up Kendrick Underwood. He’s Savannah metro, straight and narrow. Call his home phone and tell him what’s going on. Use my name. Tell him to keep it QT.”

I got no answer. I cursed and tried to call him up two more times before I gave up. Behind me, I heard the metallic clash of another drawer being dumped on the floor. Then Trey kicked the cabinets. Hard. I heard other words, bad words.

“What’s wrong?” I hollered.

“Drive the boat!”

“I’m just—”

“Goddamn it, Tai, drive the f*cking boat!”

I hit the throttle. Behind me, the carnage continued.

“Sit down!” I yelled.

“I’m looking for the weapons cache!”

“Can’t you—”

The first bullet pinged the hull. I dropped to my knees, hands still on the wheel.

“Get down!” Trey yelled. “Now!”

“I am down!”

Behind me, I heard the buzz of a motor. One look revealed exactly what I didn’t want to see—two of Jasper’s men on a flat fishing skiff, right behind us and gaining fast. Another bullet shattered the left windshield. I cursed and tried to stay low.

“Trey!”

“I found the guns! Keep the boat steady!”

He jammed a mag into a semi-automatic .45, a gun like a cannon. I turned my attention back to the water as he dropped to one knee behind the leaning post.

“Damn it!” he said. “I can’t get a shot!”

I stayed low. “Wait until we’re through the next curve. You can get a side shot, take out the motor.”

“I can’t see them!”

“Hang on!”

I hit the docking lights, and the bright white beams illuminated the water behind us, including the skiff. It also made us a much easier target. Another shot pinged the canopy. Another flood of adrenalin as I slung the boat around the steep turn.

“Keep it steady!” Trey said.

“I’m trying!”

I wrenched the wheel. The boat heaved, heavy. The skiff followed. I kept my eyes forward, even when I heard Trey’s gun, four quick staccato shots. I heard yelling behind me and risked another look. The skiff floundered in the water. I saw one man swimming for shore, the other staying on the boat. As I switched off the lights, another bullet zipped by, then another, but we took the next curve and moved out of range.

Trey limped to stand beside me, busy reloading. His left eye was a welter of blood, his lip split. Dried blood caked his collar, his shirtsleeves.

“They’re down,” he said.

He grabbed a spare mag and proceeded to fill it with ammo. We were alone on the waves, ten minutes from River Street, the rain a pummeling wall of water, the wind a banshee.

Trey kept his eyes on the gun. “There were two of them. There’s a third man, smaller.”

I switched on the running lights. “Boone said he and Jefferson took care of him.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” We hit the curve just past the bridge. Close now, very close. “How’d they manage to take you down?”

“The one posted in the hall had a stun gun.”

I winced. “Damn. You can’t fight a stun gun.”

Trey slammed the mag into the chamber. “They put me in a laundry cart, taped and handcuffed. Then they locked me down below on the boat, at least one of them always standing guard.”

“It’s how they bypassed the security detail at the gate, isn’t it? It’s how they got into our room so easily. Fitzhugh’s room too. They’re cops, in uniform. Safety protocols don’t work against the people who are supposed to protect you.”

He reached for a new gun, a Sig Sauer nine-millimeter. “It wasn’t supposed to be a kidnapping. They were looking for…I don’t know what it is.”

“Boone said something about a speech.”

“They did too. But I don’t know what that means.”

I hauled the boat around a curve. “Neither do I.”

He finished loading the nine and picked up a new gun. “I surprised them as they were searching. But Jasper—”

“Jasper was there?”

“No, he was with Boone on the island. They called him when I arrived. He decided I would make good leverage, so he told them to take me. I didn’t know it was Jasper on the other end of the line, of course—”

“Or you would have told me. I know.”

“Right.” Another sharp glance. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Because you said the dock was the weak point in the security plan. Plus the boat’s motor was still hot when I got there, with a quick and messy tie-up. But it wasn’t until Jasper dropped the keys in the marsh that everything clicked.”

He gave me another look. “I didn’t know you could hotwire a boat.”

“Are you kidding? Someone who loses keys as much as I do learns to hotwire all kinds of things.” I sent him a look too. “I didn’t know you could pick handcuffs.”

“Garrity taught me. He also taught me to keep a spare cuff key in my shoe. Which they took, along with my wallet.”

He was skipping the part of the story where he got bloodied and beaten. I couldn’t see his eyes in the low light, but I knew they’d gone flat blue, steely and opaque.

“Where is Hope meeting you?” he said.

“In the alley behind the tattoo shop.”

“Head that way.”

He kept jamming bullets into magazines with machinelike efficiency. It took that long for me to realize what was happening. In the relief of finding him, of making the getaway, of hearing Boone’s voice and knowing he was safe and on my side, I’d forgotten Hope. She was still in danger. And we were on a direct course for her location.

I felt sick to my stomach. “We’re going to save her, aren’t we?”

Trey opened another box of ammo. “I’ll need to get as close as possible to the meet point. Where can you dock?”

I stared at him, the water peeling away in front of me. The men would have let Jasper out of the dock box, but he wasn’t on that skiff. I knew what Trey had figured out. Jasper was headed for Hope, probably by car, the faster route. And when he found her, he would not negotiate or hesitate.

Did I care if Hope died? Not at that moment. Would I care later? No answer came.

“Trey?”

He didn’t look up. “What?”

“Why are we doing this?”

“Because it’s…because she’s…”

I saw the confusion in his face. He wasn’t a cop anymore. No more vows to protect and serve, no more wading into the fray. He could put the gun away and stand down and let the consequences play out. I’m not responsible for other people’s bad choices, Hope had said. Maybe she was absolutely right.

“Boone’s calling Kendrick,” I said. “He’ll respond.”

“If he gets the message. If he gets there in time. If not, Jasper will kill her.”

“That’s not our problem.”

“Nonetheless.” Trey pocketed the mag, reached for another. “You stay on the boat, I’ll—”

“You’re not serious.”

“Of course I am. You can’t—”

“No, Trey, you can’t. You can’t do shit right now!”

He swallowed, eyes on his weapon. “But I have to.”

And he did. This wasn’t a choice for him, not like going down to the courtyard or not. This was Life or Death. He was trapped in the web of the right thing to do, and he could not get out, not even if he tried.

I licked my lips. “What if I told you not to?”

“Tai—”

“What if I begged?”

He flinched, his expression unreadable. “Please don’t do that.”

I wanted to scream. He’d stop if I told him to. He’d crawl into the box and close the lid, and I’d crawl in with him and we’d be safe forever and ever. There were lots of ways to die, and suffocating on your own safety was a slow but sure one.

I kicked the console, then kicked it again. “Aw, f*ck.”

“Tai?”

I exhaled sharply, then pointed to the map above us. “I’ll dock here. The meeting place is a few hundred yards from there, down the side alley. I can make that pretty quick even lugging all this hardware.”

“But—”

“We’re in this together, Trey, or we’re not in it at all. You know this.”

He almost toppled, caught himself. Then he got his footing, and after only a second’s hesitation, he handed me the Sig. “It’s loaded, extra mags here.”

He was all resolve suddenly, all plan and organization. He was saving someone in need, someone who didn’t deserve it, but who would die otherwise. This was what he did. And it was the truest, realest part of him.

I shoved the gun into my empty pocket. “Thanks. Now hang on.”

We were taking the curves as fast as the boat could go. The wind and rain combined into a gray-sharded onslaught.

Trey peered at the speedometer. “Can you go faster?”

“This thing draws four feet. This is the best we can do.”

“Will we get there ahead of Jasper?”

“It’ll be close. The road’s faster, but we had the head start.”

“When we get there, you go find Hope. I’ll secure the boat and follow as quickly as I can. If there are authorities on the scene, don’t engage. If it’s Jasper, same response. If it’s clear, then get Hope and bring her back to the boat.”

This was the plan, and there wasn’t an ounce of give in it. Things were simple for Trey now—no moral quandaries, no confusion, no competing priorities. He wasn’t my boyfriend anymore. That guy wasn’t showing up for a while. Which was just as well—we didn’t have any room for him.

I grabbed the wheel. Drive, Tai, drive the f*cking boat.