He squinted in the light. It was what passed aboard a boat for a living room. A small floral sofa and a rattan chair with a matching floral cushion sat in front of a small round rattan coffee table that was painted white and topped with glass. The carpet was the color of AstroTurf. The ceilings were low and the space was cramped, but the walls appeared to be paneled with teak and the wood shone warmly in the yellow interior light. A large wood and brass barometer hung decoratively above the sofa. Just beyond the sitting area lay the small dinette and corner galley he had seen from above.
Reston stood next to the sofa, in front of an entryway that led deeper under the hull. He was wearing khakis and a T-shirt. His eyes were black holes. He had one arm firmly around Susan Ward’s waist and he held a gun underneath her left jaw. A brown leather belt hung loosely around her neck. Archie had no doubt that it would match the ligature marks around the dead girls’ necks. Susan’s forearms and ankles were bound with duct tape. But she was alive. And awake. And, judging by her drained but withering expression, pissed.
“Ahoy,” Archie said.
“Addy’s in the back—” Susan managed to spit out before Reston snatched the end of the belt and wrenched it tight, choking her. He kept the gun flush against her head as she fell to her knees.
“Shhhh,” he said ferociously. “Why did you have to do that? Why won’t you be nice to me?”
Susan flailed at the belt with her bound hands but couldn’t get her fingers behind it to loosen the noose. Her face was distorted, blotchy, her eyes frozen wide, mouth wider, sputtering. Archie had about two minutes.
It was all he could do to stop himself from rushing Reston. He had a gun to Susan’s head. If Archie lunged at him, he might shoot her. Her weight was on the floor, so Reston probably wasn’t going to break her neck. A successful strangulation was harder than it looked. It wasn’t the lack of air alone that killed you; it was the compression of the vascular structures of the neck. If Archie did nothing, she was going to die. But that would take a few minutes. And a few minutes was a long time. That gave Archie a chance.
He turned away from Reston and Susan and walked the few feet to the corner galley. There was a small stove and a steel sink set in a green countertop. The cupboards were painted white. Archie opened a few of them until he found some glasses. He took one out and poured himself a glass of water. He couldn’t hear Susan struggling anymore. Had she lost consciousness? Had he blown this, too? And then, at once, there came an enormous choking gasp. Reston had let go of the belt. Susan was breathing. She coughed, hoarse and rasping. Archie closed his eyes, feeling his blood rush to his fingertips. It had worked.
“What are you doing?” Reston asked him.
Archie waited a few breaths before he answered. Let the bastard wonder. “I have to take some pills,” he explained, his back still turned. “I can take them without water, but they work faster if I wash them down with something.” He turned back to Reston and gave him a courteous smile. Then he sat on the tan upholstered bench at the green fold-down dinette table, careful not to slide his knees under the tabletop, so that he could move quickly if he had to. He set the glass of water on the table. Archie could see the lights of the Coast Guard boat through the tiny porthole over the dinette. Which meant that they could see him. Good.
“I’m going to reach into my pocket now and get the pills,” he said, and before Reston could respond, he reached slowly into his pocket and retrieved the brass pillbox. He opened it and counted out eight pills and lined them up one by one on the dark green tabletop. Even in this environment, he felt a surge of endorphins just looking at them. “I know it looks like a lot,” he said to Reston. He raised his eyebrows wryly. “But I have a high tolerance.”
Reston had Susan by the waist again. She was still coughing as her airway tried to convince itself that it was clear. But she had managed to pull the belt off her neck and it now lay in a heap at her feet. Good girl, thought Archie.
“Susan,” he said pleasantly. “You okay?”
She nodded, raising her head to look at him, eyes flashing with defiance again. Reston pulled her tighter toward him. Archie picked up a pill, put it on his tongue, and washed it down with a drink of water from the glass. Then he set the glass back down on the table. “You got Addy to come to you,” he said to Reston.
Reston nodded. “She needed someone who made her feel special.”
“But you took the other girls,” Archie said. “So how did you fake your alibis?”