She should just lock it up and go….
But she didn’t. She went in, closed the door, headed to the kitchen, and dug around until she could find a sponge and cleanser. When she’d finished with the kitchen, she went on to the living area, the master cabin and the second bedroom. She had to admit, the place looked really good when she was done.
She was crazy, she knew. She should head back to her room and get some sleep, but she was too restless.
She walked back into the kitchen area and helped herself to a bottle of juice from the refrigerator, then leaned against the counter. A pad and pencil lay by the counter phone. She picked up the pencil and began drawing idly.
A picture of Karen.
She flicked the page. A picture of Len.
Once again she turned the page, then sketched the scene of the accident, putting in every detail she could recall. This sketch, she realized, was her best. Time had made her mind clearer. She’d wanted details—and she had them. They just didn’t seem to help her.
She turned the page again and drew a head study of David Wharton.
Then she grew impatient with herself and anxious for Jake to get back. She set down the pencil and looked around the cabin. She’d done a good job.
Except for the carpet.
She hesitated, then shrugged. She’d gone this far. Surely he had a vacuum cleaner.
He did. She found it stowed in the cabin closet.
The machine roared to life. Satisfied at last, she switched off the vacuum. As she did so, she heard footsteps on the deck.
“Jake?”
There was no answer. She frowned, wondering if she’d been imagining that someone was after her all along. She stayed very still for a long time and heard nothing at all.
Shaking her head, she returned the vacuum to its place. But she felt uneasy in the confines of the houseboat, so she hurried out on deck. She locked the door, pocketed the key, then hesitated again.
Lights and noise were coming from the bar. Someone with a yen for country music had been popping their quarters into the jukebox.
The water seemed peaceful and serene. The boats rocked in their slips, water lapping against their hulls.
She found herself walking around the narrow deck that circled the cabin. After a full circuit, she looked up toward the bar again. The terrace was still lit, but there were no customers sitting in the night-lights and moonglow.
She heard a splash and turned quickly.
As she did, she felt a rush of wind, then a powerful surge against her back. It lifted and threw her.
Caught off guard, she went flying over the port side of the boat into the expanse of ebony water that rippled eerily in the shadow and glow of the moonlit evening.
As she plunged into the darkness, she heard a whoosh and felt something plunge behind her.
CHAPTER 19
It was at the end of dinner, just before lock-up time for the night, when everything was simply going by rote, that the siege of panic swept over Peter Bordon. His fork was halfway to his mouth, the din in the large hall was customary, and men were moving about, getting ready to return to their cells, when something suddenly changed. But only inside him. To his left, Carson and Byers were arguing about cigarettes. To his right, Sanders, the one-time CPA for a major corporation, was taking delight in a basket he had shot during his exercise session. There was nothing obvious going on to create such a sudden terror in his bloodstream.
He set his fork down, afraid that the mystery meat they called an entree would go flying across the room otherwise. His muscles were tense, his hands, his feet. He was afraid that his lungs would lock, that his heart would freeze and cease to beat. In his life, he’d never felt such an insane, unreasoning fear.
Maybe it had been coming on for a long time. He’d never been a man to know fear. He’d spent years believing in his own invincibility, his charisma, his ability to manipulate the minds of others. He didn’t feel fear, he created it.
But, like everything else, it had been an illusion.
And there, with just days to go before he knew he would appease the parole board and be set free, he learned not just fear, but absolute terror. Suddenly the freedom he had craved, worked for, planned for, was a chilling prospect.
Sweat was breaking out on his brow.
Sanders, at his side, stopped speaking about basketball and the fact that, if nothing else, prison had taken away the paunch he had gained in his twenties. He was staring at Peter.
“Hey, you all right, Mr. Bordon?”
“Fine. Hit a piece of gristle in this mess,” he managed to mutter. Once again, he looked around. Every one of his fellow inmates looked like a menacing killer. Sanders’ smile made him look like a madman. Carson was grinning and looked like a werewolf about to devour its prey.
Peter forced himself to calm down. The police didn’t know. There had been no proof. Nothing left behind. He had always known how to be careful.