Lara and Meg found themselves seated at the table while the vessel sped away from the dock. It was surprisingly fast, but she supposed she should have expected that.
Grant Blackwood could afford anything he wanted.
She hadn’t recognized his voice because the Southern charm had disappeared when he’d spoken to them at the dock; there had been no trace of his liquid accent. And when they’d gotten on the boat he’d produced a gun with a massive silencer, and he kept it pointed at them now, smiling all the while.
“Good thing you decided to come along. Unlike your Dr. Amory. Decent guy, even if he didn’t accept Ely Taggerly’s offer. He was a smart man, and he could have gone far with us. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. And Adrianna... Well, I’d have killed her without much regret. She was no one to me.”
“So why haven’t you just shot us?” Meg asked him.
“Because I have something else in mind. Poetic justice of a sort,” he said, then turned to Lara. “I am sorry about this, but, Lara... You and that damned dolphin. You just had to find those body parts and bring down the whole FBI. Well, I’m sorry, but yours are going to be the next ones they find. You found the dead in the water? Now you’ll be the dead in the water.”
Another man—one of the crew who had manned the boat while Blackwood cracked Dr. Amory’s skull and poisoned Adrianna—came down to the cabin. He was about forty, Lara thought, Hispanic, medium build, with dark eyes and hair.
“You’re a Barillo, aren’t you?” she asked. “You look like your father. I’ve seen his picture in the paper.”
The man looked at Blackwood. “She knows.”
“You know, sometimes you’re an idiot. She doesn’t know anything—or didn’t, till you confirmed her suspicion. It’s a good thing it doesn’t matter anymore, isn’t it?” Blackwood asked.
“Tomas Barillo?” Meg asked.
“The same, chica,” he told her, sweeping into a bow. He looked at Blackwood. “She’s FBI. Talk about being an idiot. The FBI will never let this go, not once you kill one of their own.”
“The FBI can chase their tails forever, just like they’ve been doing all along. Once they lose cadaver girl here, they’ll have nothing,” Blackwood said. He slid next to Lara on the seat and laughed. “Such revulsion! Not all that much different from the look you gave me at the party when I asked you to take a walk, huh, little girl? Leave it to Sonia to let me know about Special Agent Cody. I wouldn’t have killed you for that, though. But you just had to keep finding evidence. All those body parts...”
“I had to keep finding them because you kept providing them,” Lara said, surprised that she could talk, stunned that she wasn’t terrified. She was going to be killed. And Meg—who was powerless because she had asked her to drop her gun—was going to die with her.
She looked at her friend. Meg wasn’t betraying fear. She wouldn’t, either.
Meg was looking at Tomas Barillo. “I understand what you’re trying to do,” she said. “Your brother Anthony is dying of some neurological disease, and you’re trying to find a cure.”
Tomas lowered his head, grinning. “You think I did this to save my brother?” he asked. “Yes, I need to keep him alive. But just barely. I need people to see him and think that he is alive and well.”
“A puppet figurehead, while you take over his empire?” Lara asked.
“Bingo,” Tomas said. “Lovely and smart. What a waste. We could play awhile, you know, Blackwood.”
“No. No time for play,” Blackwood said. “Stop letting the little head rule the big one.”
“Why are you part of this?” Lara asked Blackwood. She really did want to know. She also realized they were about to kill her and Meg, and it wouldn’t hurt to play for time. “You’re rich as Midas, and you earned all your money legitimately. You have everything.”
Barillo started to laugh. “Everything? Let me tell you something. My partner here, Mr. Grant Blackwood, has been diagnosed with a neurological disease that will first steal his muscles, and then his organs, and then...he will die like men die from puffer fish poison. He will know that he is wasting away, that he will be nothing but a lump of meat.”
“Shut up, you mongrel bastard!” Blackwood said. “Let’s do this! Ladies, get up and out on deck.”
“Why should we make it easy for you?” Meg demanded, staying where she was.
“Let’s see. I can drop you into the water to drown whole, or I can blow up your kneecaps first. Maybe the sharks will eat you before you have time to drown. I don’t care which. Your choice.”
Meg looked at Lara, and Lara could read her mind.
Do what he says. Every second of life buys us more opportunity to escape.
Lara rose and pretended to catch her suit on the table.
“Move!” Barillo said.
“I’m trying!” she said.
He ushered them both up on deck. There was a third man there—he’d been captaining the vessel.
They hadn’t come as far as she had expected.