Dead_Wood

Forty-one

Something about a house. F*ck. I was losing my mind – short term, medium term and long-term memory loss. All at the same time. I pounded the steering wheel with my hands. Think, think, think. I pulled onto Vernier from Lakeshore, heading toward I-94.

I needed to start making more connections. That feeling of being close wasn’t good enough.

Where had I been when I felt things starting to come together? At the party. The first time. Talking to Shannon’s entourage for the first time.

A car pulled in front of me and I reefed the wheel to the right, sped up and floored it past him.

Something about a farmhouse?

What the f*ck was it? We were all sitting around, talking about escapes or something. And Memphis mentioned something about looking at a house. Was she buying?

Finally, it clicked.

A lighthouse. That’s right, a lighthouse. Because she said she was on Harsen’s. The island at the other end of Lake St. Clair.

I pounded the wheel again and roared onto I-94. Harsen’s Island. A lighthouse. And someone had said something about Memphis milking cows. A joke that I assumed meant she had a little farm or something. Farms on Harsen’s weren’t unheard of.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

It’d been nearly three hours since Molly had been killed. If the same person was headed for Memphis’, he or she had a big jump on me.

I pushed the pedal all the way to the floor.

• • •



Harsen’s island is the biggest of a small group of islands at the north end of Lake St. Clair. The lake narrows and eventually turns into the St. Clair River for a brief thirty miles or so before opening back up, this time into Lake Huron.

I exited I-94, sped across Harper and pulled into the parking lot at the ferry harbor. Fifteen minutes later, the ferry dumped us on the island and I hit the road running. Even though Harsen’s has its own yacht club and for years was a miniature summer playground for Grosse Pointers, it still feels like you travel back twenty years or so. Mostly summer cottages and the occasional bait shop/convenience store.

The entire island is only a couple square miles with one main road that runs along the outside border. The road is aptly named Harsen’s boulevard and I steered onto it from the ferry dock. It had been over fifteen years since I’d been on the island, and then I was a high schooler driving out to my buddy’s cottage to get drunk.

I’d never seen a lighthouse on the island, or if I had I certainly didn’t remember, and didn’t know that one even existed out here.

I also figured there weren’t many cops out here, either. So I hammered the pedal down and turned Harsen’s into my own private Indianapolis 500.

After about five minutes, I sped around a steep curve and saw the lighthouse, although, technically, it was more like a lightpost you see in the suburbs. A tiny harbor had a few boats tied off and I looked at the surrounding land.

No sign of a farmhouse.

I did, however, see an older woman walking a Bassett Hound. I pulled the car up next to her.

“Do you know of a farmhouse around here with a view of the lighthouse? It belongs to a songwriter named Memphis Bornais?” I said.

She looked at me with bloodshot blue eyes. They looked just like the dogs’. I thought she was going to tell me that Harsen’s residents were a private people and that if this Memphis woman wanted me to find her she would’ve given me directions.

Instead, she jerked an unusually large thumb in the direction behind her.

“Third mailbox down,” she said. The Bassett Hound gave a soft bark and they went on their way.

I thanked her and sped down to the mailbox – instead of the little flag sticking up from the box it was a metal musical note. I knew I had the right place.

The driveway was dirt and gravel and it immediately climbed. From the road, the tall trees blocked any view of the houses behind. But once I got near the top of the driveway, I realized there was a very small bluff. And perched on top was a little white farmhouse, with a picket fence and a red barn behind it.

It was a cross between Mayberry and Martha’s Vineyard, before Billy Joel moved in.

I skidded to a stop in the roughly hewn semi-circular drive and jogged to the front door. I rang the doorbell and waited, but I heard nothing from inside. I tried the knob. Locked.

I ran to the back of the house and saw a silver, 7-series BMW backed up against the house. I went up the back porch steps and was about to knock on the door when I saw that it was already open.

I went through it, into a small mudroom. There were potted plants and gardening gloves and an umbrella. The door leading from the mudroom into the kitchen was open as well. Inside the kitchen, I saw a few dishes in the sink, a pot on the stove and a small cat bowl with food in it.

From the kitchen, I went through a doorway into a small dining room and off the dining room was a living room. The place was furnished with big, overstuffed chairs and throw rugs. A small fireplace sat off to one side of the living room. I saw on the mantle a collection of photographs.

To my right, I saw a stairwell and heard a bumping noise from above me.

“Hello!” I yelled up. No one answered.

I climbed the stairs two at a time and came to a hallway with three doors. The first door on my right was open and I could see tile as well as the edge of a pedestal sink.

To my left was another door, closed. And straight ahead, the third door was open and I could see shadows moving inside. I walked forward, my heart beating from exertion and fear.

For the first time in my career, I desperately wished for a gun.

I peeked into the room and immediately understood the bumping sound and the moving shadows.

Memphis hung from the ceiling fan, her neck stretched in a way that could mean only one thing. The ceiling fan was on, and was slowly spinning her body, her foot occasionally bumping against the bed’s footboard.

I froze, unable to tear myself away from the image of Memphis’ face, her lips frozen in a look of terror, blood dripping from her nose-

Blood dripping…

Fresh blood…

An electric spike shot down my spine just as I heard the whisper of a shoe on carpet and I ducked but the blow cracked along my vertebrae between my shoulder blades and I hit the floor. I rolled and caught the sight of Erma’s – or was it Freda’s? – face flushed red, her teeth gritted, a tazer in her hand.

She cursed in German and I rolled into the bedroom where Memphis hung.

And I rolled right under Freda.

She’d been standing behind the door. While her sister had been in the bedroom with the door closed. As I watched them descend on me, I realized they knew I was coming. Somehow, they knew. They’d staged the scene to lure me in.

The first one pounced on me and sat on my chest and pinned my arms under her knees. I tried to head butt her in the face but she pulled back easily and all I caught was air. I felt an incredible weight on my legs and realized the other one was kneeling on them.

If I had any doubts about what they were trying to do, those doubts ended when the first one grabbed a handful of my hair and brought her gun up toward my mouth. I gritted my teeth but she let go of my hair, brought her forearm down and pinched my nose shut.

I held my breath, knowing what was going to happen. When I opened my mouth to breathe, she would jam the gun in and blow off the top of my head.

Then they would jot a little note.

Double suicide. Or murder/suicide depending on which story they went with.

I’d killed Memphis for some reason and then they’d bring out my past. An ex-cop ate his gun. Happens all the f*cking time. Every day, in fact.

I didn’t think my sister would let it ride, but hey, these two f*ckers were pros. They’d make it look very good, very real.

My lungs were on fire and I knew I couldn’t hold my breath very much longer. The first one had a little smile on her face. She looked like a mean little kid who’d pulled the wings off a fly and was now happily watching it die a pathetic little spasmodic death.

It pissed me off.

Every muscle in my body slammed into place and I bucked with everything I had.

The first one barely moved.

But move she did.

Just enough to free my left arm.

I reached up and got her neck and bucked again, this time bringing her head toward me as I rammed my head forward. I heard and felt her nose squash against my forehead. Blood sprayed and now my right arm was loose. I grabbed the gun as the woman on top of me sagged. The gun fired a round and the explosion brought the three of us into a burst of frantic energy.

I hoped that I’d knocked the first one out, but her eyes cleared just as I was bringing the gun around. She had the advantage but I had momentum on my side. I gave one more shove and the gun came around toward her chest.

I pulled the trigger.

Just as she was knocked back, the second one let go of my legs and reached for her gun. I put three rounds into her chest and she staggered back into the hallway and fell on her ass, her feet still in the room. She had a look of utter sadness, looking down at her dead sister. She toppled over then, her big body landing with a thud.

The smell of gunpowder was overwhelming and I felt stars shooting across my forehead.

Everything started to go black and I was suddenly scared I’d been shot.

But then I realized why.

I was still holding my breath.





Forty-two

The first thing I did was vomit. I made it to the toilet, wondering about destroying evidence, but hurl I did. My whole body was shaking, probably from both fear and the aftermath of having an ungodly amount of volts shot through my system. I was having a near death and out-of-body experience at the same time.

Somehow, I found my way back to the first bedroom where one of the twins had been hiding. I assumed the note was meant to be written in my hand, and sure enough, there was a slip of paper. It was the one on which I’d jotted down my name and phone number and given to someone in Shannon’s entourage, maybe Molly?

It was standard, depressed prose: God forgive me, I’m a failure. The note said I had begun an affair with Memphis, fallen in love and when I told her it was over because I was a relatively happily married man, she killed herself. Which then weighed so heavily on me that I could only deal with it by killing myself as well.

The note stopped there, probably when I entered the house and interrupted the forger at work.

I thought about what to do next. I should call the police. Yes, call the police. They would arrive, I’d make my statement, a few hours of questioning and I’d be released around midnight. No, don’t call the police. I stood there, shaking, trying to pull myself together.

Shit. I checked my watch. It was late – I would have to hurry to make my meeting with Shannon.

Leaving the scene of a crime is a felony. So is killing people and I had two dead bodies to my name, and a third hanging from a ceiling fan.

Having asked the old woman for directions to the farmhouse, the people on the ferry, I knew there was no way I could avoid facing the cops. The question was, when did I want to do that? Leaving the scene of a crime would be more than enough to have my P.I. license revoked.

Still, I was hot on this thing and I had a feeling that my meeting with Shannon would bring it to an end.

I decided to compromise. First, I did a quick run-through of Memphis’ house, looking for anything that I could use with Shannon. It felt good to be moving, to be doing something.

I went through every room in the house but came up empty. There was no other choice. I left the house and made a beeline for the silver BMW. It was either Memphis’ or the twins’, but I didn’t know which.

I looked inside and saw a small bag in the front passenger seat’s floor space. It didn’t seem to belong there, and I had a hard time believing it belonged to one of the twins.

In fact, I could’ve sworn that I’d seen the bag somewhere. It looked small, neat and organized. It was a brown leather briefcase and I could see the Franklin planner inside.

I had seen the bag before.

It was Molly’s.

I tried the door and found it was locked. At the back of the house was a small flower bed with a border of river rocks. I picked up the biggest rock, went back and smashed in the Beemer’s window.

The alarm went off and I grabbed the bag.

On the way back to my car, I lived up to the other end of my compromise.

I called my sister.

She didn’t like what I had to say.





Forty-three

I wasn’t really in the best shape. I ached from the tazer blast, and a blow one of the twins had laid on my spine. But mostly I was in shock from killing two women. The sight of blood, especially my own, made me very uncomfortable. And right now, I was doing everything I could to not think about what had taken place at Memphis’ farmhouse. I’m sure the cops were there by now, wondering where I was, and scouring the scene, trying to figure out what had happened.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ellen where I was going. Suffice to say, if there was any way to reach through the phone line and strangle someone, she would have popped my head off like a champagne cork.

Now, I was just trying to keep it together.

I was early for my rendezvous with Shannon. I parked my car in the Windmill Pointe parking lot and hurried out to the dock. The wind was picking up and the chop had graduated from stiff to severe. Above me, the night sky showed no stars and I could see the black inkiness of serious storm clouds.

The benches normally taken by fisherman going after the perch that hung out close to shore were empty. As were the picnic tables and beach chairs. The whole f*cking place was empty except for me.

And maybe Shannon Sparrow.

• • •



A flash of lightning threw a spotlight on the lake. There wasn’t a single boat. Even the buoys looked like they wanted to come in and get out of the wind.

My boat was called Air Fare because it was owned by some pilot who’d had money to burn, but then lost his job. I had a feeling it was due to drinking because when I took ownership of the boat and went down below, the smell of gin was overwhelming. Something told me that the pilot was most likely never far from a martini. A man after my own heart, to be honest. I could use about a baker’s dozen of martinis right now.

It had occurred to me that maybe someone had dropped Shannon off. After all, a woman of her stature usually had a driver. Maybe she’d had someone drop her off, then would call to have someone pick her up. I hadn’t noticed anyone in the parking lot. There weren’t even any cars, other than a black pickup truck and a white Toyota Tercel, both of which I knew belonged to park workers.

The boat looked just like I’d left it. The dark red spinnaker cover was snapped into place. The mooring lines were all taut. The deck was neat and clean.

There was no sign of Shannon.

I turned back toward the parking lot. No sense standing out there waiting for her. I boarded the boat and unlocked the doors to the cabin down below.

The smell was a mixture of marine oil, gasoline, booze and cleaning products.

I flipped on the generator and turned on some of the interior lights, careful to make sure the curtains were drawn. A glimpse into Molly’s briefcase had confirmed the rising feeling. Things were falling into place and this meeting with Shannon was going to prove everything I believed to be right.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

• • •



“John?”

I heard her voice from the pier. I’d been lost in thought but now stepped up onto the deck and called back. “Shannon.”

She had on blue jeans, a windbreaker and topsiders. A large bag was slung over her shoulder. Her hair was loosely pulled back. She looked…normal.

“Nice boat,” she said.

“It’s a tub of shit, but thanks,” I said.

She stood there, uncertain. It was odd seeing her by herself. No gang of hangers-on swarming around like a pack of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. She seemed smaller, less sure of herself. Maybe I was reading too much into it.

She stepped off the main dock and walked along the dividing dock between my boat and the one next to me.

I held her hand as she hopped onto the deck. Without saying a word, she went down the stairs to the cabin. After taking a quick look around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I followed her below.

The cabin’s layout was simple. On one side was a small table surrounded by a U-shaped bench. The other side was a long counter with a sink, a fridge and the radio. Small storage compartments were tucked everywhere in between.

I gestured for Shannon to sit on one end of the bench and I took the other. The space was too small to sit face-to-face so she sat straight ahead and I sat with my legs out toward the stairs.

“Okay, who called this meeting?” I said.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” I said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How come you haven’t said a word about Molly’s death?” I said, ignoring her question. I mean, come on, your assistant falls down the stairs, breaks her neck, and you keep an appointment to meet a P.I. at ten o’clock at night? It was about as absurd as me killing two people and keeping an appointment with a country music star. Chaos reigned.

“I guess I’m all talked out about it,” she said. “I’ve been over it with the cops nine or ten times.”

“Now that you’ve got your story straight, why don’t you lay it on me?”

“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “And don’t talk to me like that.”

“You weren’t there when she died?”

She shook her head. “Do you have anything to drink around here?” she said. “Aren’t sailors always supposed to have booze on hand?”

I hesitated and took a look at the big purse she’d slid off her shoulder and placed on the table.

“Oh, please,” she said.

It was a moment of truth of sorts. Did I think Shannon was knee-deep in this thing? The bigger question was, how could she not be? But as I looked at her across the table, my gut told me she wasn’t. I got up, went to the sideboard and grabbed a bottle of whiskey and splashed some into a clean glass for her.

“You’re not drinking?” she said.

“You need me to?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

I waited while Shannon drained half the glass in one big gulp. The boat rocked slightly and I knew that the wind had picked up even more, if it was able to whip waves that big into the harbor.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.

With a shaking hand, she reached for her purse. I watched her as she pulled out a thick joint and a lighter. As she tried to light the tip, it slipped from her hand and landed on the floor.

“Just tell me what you do know,” I said.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice quavering. “I have people who are supposed to do that for me.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said.

She nodded.

“Too many people doing too many things on your behalf,” I said. It didn’t seem to register for a moment. When it did, she went pale and it was hard to see her as the superstar in the press. On the covers of magazines and the object of countless fan clubs and websites. She looked like a scared, lonely woman approaching middle-age.

“Please help me,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her lips trembled and the tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.

I let out a long breath. “I think I do.”

“Can you explain it to me?”

I took the CD from Molly’s purse, the one I’d found in the twins’ silver BMW. I went to the control panel of the boat where a small, built-in CD player was housed. I flicked on the power button and slid the disc in. I waited a moment and then hit play.

It was just static at first. Almost like a gentle scratching. And then soft, acoustic guitar. Gentle notes, full of sorrow and melancholy.

And then a voice.

A really beautiful, haunting voice that began to sing of lost love and the ghosts of lovers past.

I was listening at last to Jesse Barre.

The music itself was rough, but you could hear the quality, the command of the song and the ease of the voice. She sounded like a natural. But it was the power of the words that moved me the most. It was the kind of song that if you heard it on the radio, you would wait and hope the DJ would tell you who it was so you could immediately go buy the CD.

I looked at Shannon and I could tell she knew the same thing. The fear in her face was gone, replaced with a kind of warm recognition. Even in the midst of murder and mayhem, she was enough of a human being and a musician to recognize true beauty when she heard it. And she was hearing it now.

When the song was over, I turned back to the player and hit pause.

I heard clapping and when I turned back, Teddy Armbruster stood next to Shannon.

And next to Teddy was a man.

He looked oddly familiar to me. He had a smirk on his lean, slightly wolfish face.

The boat seemed to sway under me and my knees felt weak. I reached out with my hand against the side of the cabinet to steady myself.

“Surprise, surprise,” Teddy said.

The man just looked at me, curious amusement on his face.

It was him.

The man who I’d met on a snowy night so many years ago.

“Look at him, he’s in shock,” Teddy said.

I couldn’t stop looking at the man. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.

Teddy spoke again, a wide smile on his face.

“I’d introduce you,” Teddy said, unable to suppress a chuckle. “But I believe you two have already met.”

It was him.

The man who killed Benjamin Collins.





Forty-four

“Why don’t you step away from the CD player, John,” Teddy said. On cue, the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins eased out a handgun from a shoulder holster.

“Take out the CD and hand it to me,” Teddy said.

I did as asked.

“Teddy, what are you doing?” Shannon said.

Teddy smiled at her, took the CD and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suitcoat.

“Nothing you need to worry about, Shannon.”

“But I do,” she said. She turned to me. “That was Jesse Barre singing, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “And singing beautifully,” I added, still not taking my eyes from the man across from me.

“What a shame,” Teddy said.

“John,” Shannon said. She was looking at the final destination, but wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here.

“Jesse Barre was going to retire from making guitars,” I said. “Her boyfriend, Nevada Hornsby told me she was taking a sabbatical.”

“Permanent sabbatical,” Teddy said. “An oxymoron, I suppose.” His smirk was vile.

“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. I was about to ramble, but I didn’t know what else to do. No one was stopping me, and I needed some time to try to figure something out.

“But then when I found the CD in Molly’s purse – the one Erma and Freda killed her for, I started to realize what had happened,” I said. “Jesse had contacted Memphis, probably for advice. Memphis lied to me about not knowing Jesse. Memphis was probably threatened by it, worried that Shannon would start buying Jesse’s songs, so she convinced Laurence Grasso that when he got out of prison if he killed Jesse for her, Memphis would try to get him back with Shannon.”

“Oh my God,” Shannon said.

“Oh, please,” Teddy said. He was bored, looking around the inside of my sailboat with obvious disgust. The man with the gun was only looking at me.

“And Grasso set Coltraine up to take the fall.”

“This isn’t true,” Shannon said.

“I think at some point, when Grasso was out of control, Memphis went to Teddy and spilled the beans,” I said. “Somehow, Molly realized what was going on and ever the spin doctor, Teddy had both Memphis and Molly killed. And now he’ll try to kill me. All to keep the gravy train rolling in.”

Shannon began to sob outright.

“Time to go,” Teddy said. “Get up.”

“You’d better go with him, Shannon,” I said. She looked like a broken woman. Her head down, silent sobs wracking her narrow shoulders-

And then she launched herself at Teddy, windmilling her arms, slapping at his face, trying to claw him. It caught us all flatfooted. Teddy struggled to get Shannon under control. Too late, I started to make my move.

Way too late.

The man was already next to me with the muzzle of the gun just behind my ear. How he moved that fast, I had no idea. But any chance I had was gone.

Teddy finally pinned Shannon’s arms against her sides and hauled her up the stairs. She was screaming at him and calling my name until he managed to clamp a hand over her mouth.

I heard her muffled sobs as she and Teddy stepped off the boat onto the dock.

The man and I stood there for a moment, the boat gently rocking from the departure of Teddy and Shannon.

I thought I was going to die. Ellen would probably find me. She’d have to call Anna. I wouldn’t see my daughters grow up. For just a moment, I felt a sense of closure. The same man that had killed Benjamin Collins was now going to kill me.

“Just like old times,” the man said, affecting an effeminate lilt to his voice. The same one that had fooled me a few years back. “Me and you,” he said.

If I was going to die, I at least wanted some answers. I thought I deserved them before I had my brains splattered on the boat’s walls.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He chuckled softly. There was a pause and I expected to see a burst of light and then nothing but darkness.

Instead, the man said, “Start the boat.”





Forty-five

There was now a raging storm on the water. Gray clouds obscured the stars and white foam whipped off the waves.

With the man’s gun trained on my head at all times, I backed the boat out of its slip, then pushed it toward the harbor opening where I could see Lake St. Clair in all its glorious frenzy. It had begun to rain and the water came down in sheets, as if poured from the black sky. Chain lightning flashed on the horizon across the lake, over Canada.

I toyed with the idea of jumping overboard but something told me I’d get as far as one step, maybe two before my head was fully vented.

As I steered the Air Fare, I thought about how appropriate this was. The boy entrusted to me, Benjamin Collins, had been sliced up and found floating in Lake St. Clair. A lot of people blamed me, including myself, for what had happened. Although I hadn’t actually been the one to kill him, I’d had the opportunity to save him, and I’d blown it.

So now here I was with his real killer, and I was faced with the same fate. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to be able to save myself from him, either. I could imagine the story in the newspaper. ‘Cop Killed In Same Manner as Earlier Victim.’ They’d have a field day with it. Or maybe the man here had a plan to make it look like a suicide. I’m sure he had a plan.

“Where to?” I shouted as the rain whipped directly into my face.

“Out,” he said.

Maybe he was going to conk me over the head and toss me overboard. Even in good shape, I’d have trouble swimming in this shit. Knocked unconscious, I wouldn’t have a chance.

The Air Fare was a good-sized boat, twenty-nine feet long. However, Lake St. Clair was some 300 square miles and waves commonly got as big as they do on Huron or even Lake Michigan. Right now, my boat was being tossed around pretty good. In fact, I’d never been out in water this rough. Wave after wave bashed into the prow and we rode the water like a mechanical bull.

“Why?” I shouted to the man who had now moved around directly behind me. He seemed a bit unsteady. If he killed me, how was he planning to get back to shore? Somehow, I was sure he would manage.

I glanced back at him and he shook his head, then gestured with the gun for me to look back to where I was going.

In my mind, some questions were starting to get answered. I’d always assumed that the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins had been a psychopath. Not a jilted lover. But now I knew for sure. My guess was that when I’d killed Erma and Freda, Teddy had brought in someone new. Or someone old, in this case.

The man was a hired killer.

So why had he killed Benjamin Collins? As soon as I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t the right question.

“Who hired you to kill Benjamin Collins?”

I looked back and he had a smirk on his face. He shook his head.

I turned back just as a giant wave washed over the front of the boat. Water hit me in the chest and I staggered back. I didn’t know what to be more afraid of. Being murdered by a contract killer. Or being washed overboard and drowning. Same result, different paths.

Did he plan on taking me over by the yacht club? Where he’d left the butchered body of Benjamin Collins? Right now, we were pointing straight out to the middle of the lake.

I heard the man singing behind me. Over the din of the wind and the rain and the crashing waves, this f*cker was singing. I recognized the tune. Let It Bleed, from the Rolling Stones. Wonderful.

It pissed me off. Here I was, about to die. My two daughters were about to lose their father, Anna was about to lose her husband, and my killer was singing. Having a grand old time. Well, f*ck him, I thought.

I let go of the wheel and faced him. “You’re the scum of the earth – just so you know,” I shouted at him.

He continued his little musical number.

“You can kill me,” I said. “But you’re a coward. A rotten, murdering piece of dogshit.”

The anger choked up inside me and I realized there was no point in waiting. If I was going to die, I was going to die the way I wanted.

He seemed to read my mind.

He brought his gun up, and now held it straight out from his body pointing at me.

“Come on you rotten sonofabitch—” I started to say.

A resounding crash screamed in my ears and the boat’s deck slipped out from underneath me. The splintering of wood shattered the sounds of the storm and I landed on my side, pain slicing up my back and I saw the prow of another boat bisecting the Air Fare. Cut it right in f*cking half.

The ship’s prow was white, and I saw the line of blue down the side along with the word POLICE.

I struggled to get to my feet as water rushed all around me. The Air Fare was sagging, nearly broken in half.

A weight pressed on my back and hands grasped the side of my head. My head was wrenched to the side and the pain shot up my neck. He was on top of me, trying to break my neck. Unbelievable. How had he moved that fast? How had he gotten behind me again so soon after we were rammed?

Pain shot through my body and I twisted beneath him. Just as I wondered why he wasn’t shooting me, I realized he must have lost his gun.

I immediately stopped twisting and instead, pulled him in the direction he was trying to make me go.

We both rolled and crashed against the side of the boat as another wave broke over us. It knocked him off me and I thought I heard other voices shouting.

I got to my feet and whirled around just as he came at me. He hit me in the face and then in the stomach. My breath flew out of me in a gush and then he whirled, a karate kick that would’ve finished the job of taking off my head had I not ducked at just the right moment. I slipped as another wave caught me full in the face and my feet flew out from under me. I crashed into the Air Fare’s stern, which had become the receptacle for the damage done in the boat’s middle.

I slumped to the deck, water up to my waist and felt sharp fragments of wood scrape my back. I looked up and saw the impossible.

He was coming at me, full bore, with a steadiness and animal grace that made me look on in awe.

As I watched him come with the inevitability of Death itself, my hands wrapped around something that felt like a wooden bat. Just as he got close enough and I could see him winding up for another killer kick, I lashed out. The blow caught him in the side of the neck at just the right time. Off balance, he fell to the deck as another wave crashed over us. I was knocked down and the pole, which I now saw was the jib’s handle, had broken in half. A nasty, jagged break with a long sliver of wood jutting from the middle.

The Air Fare tilted, the weight of the water in the stern sending the bow up. The man slid down the deck toward me, blood in his mouth either from my blow or from being knocked down by a wave.

I raised the pole over my head with both hands and fell on top of him, driving the pole straight into him like a pile driver. My mind was on autopilot, just a raw, savage fury and a fear of dying pounding in my head.

I felt the pole plunge through his chest and bury itself in the softer wood of the deck. He reached for me, but I saw his eyes glaze and his arms went instead to the wooden spear, now rammed firmly into the sinking boat’s deck. He tugged at it, but it didn’t move.

Blood gushed from his mouth.

“Who are you?” I screamed at him. His eyes were open and I thought he was going to speak.

Instead, he laughed.

There was another loud crack, but this time it wasn’t thunder or another ship. It was the Air Fare. The boat seemed to break in half and suddenly black water was below me and then I was sinking. There was an explosion and a bright orange flame licked the air and I was under, trying to kick off my shoes and pants, my ribs and back and neck screaming in agony. I kicked toward the surface, my lungs on fire.

I broke through the surface only to have a wave slam into my face with such force that my head snapped back and I saw black, and then green again as I was forced back underwater. I bobbed to the surface and heard voices. Something hit me in the face. It wasn’t rain or wood debris from the boat.

It was rope.

I got my hands around it and felt myself being pulled.

The blackness came again.

And this time, it stayed.