‘With all due respect, I don’t think you have the nerve for this.’ She kept her voice calm. ‘I was in the army right out of school. Give me the gun and let me handle him.’
‘I’m not giving you the advantage, Claudia. If I were you I’d shoot me – maybe not kill me, because you seem like a real nice lady – then get on the radio and call for help.’
‘Where’s your radio?’
‘Up on the bridge.’
‘It doesn’t make sense for me to shoot you and then try to call for help. Your buddies might spot me up on the deck and open fire.’
He didn’t say anything, rubbing his thumb along the Sig’s handle.
‘But they won’t think anything of you being up there, Danny. Can you go up there, call the coast guard on Channel 16?’ Sixteen was the regular monitoring channel, on which boats hailed each other in short order before moving their communications to another channel. A lifeline connecting all sorts of boats on the water, Channel 16 was monitored by the coast guard. ‘Call a Mayday, tell them it’s a kidnapping situation, request help.’
‘And then I get arrested. No way.’
‘You’re going to get caught anyway. My plan’s the only safe way out for you. I promise.’
Danny stared at her. ‘But Gar’ll have Jupiter’s radio tuned to 16. They’ll hear us. Or they’ll see me using the radio and they’ll go nuts.’
‘Then call on 22A. That’s the coasties’ liaison channel. Go up there, crouch down low, and get us some help.’
He shook his head. ‘If they see me, they’ll kill me.’
‘They’re going to kill you anyway and you’re a moron if you don’t see that.’
He suddenly – but gently – pressed the barrel underneath her chin. ‘Listen. You’re not the boss here.’
‘If you kill me, Stoney won’t give you what you want.’ She felt calmer than she could have imagined with a gun held to her head by a clearly unstable man. But his finger wasn’t on the trigger. He was playing with her and the idea of death, and she stared back at him.
‘Get down to the stateroom.’ Danny pulled her to her feet, gave her a little push. ‘Lay down like you’re sleeping or crying. My plan’ll work.’
She didn’t argue. The stateroom on Miss Catherine was tiny, the bedspread worn, smelling of Cheetos and beer, like a cheap motel room. On a side table was a stack of books. All about Jean Laffite and early Texas history, little bits of neon-colored paper sticking out from the pages like bright plumage. Clothes lay in an untidy heap on the floor. Danny prodded her with the gun, grazing the back of her head, and she clambered onto the bed, her foot throbbing.
‘At least untie me so I can fight him if I have to,’ she said.
He hesitated.
‘So am I help or just bait?’ she snapped.
‘I’m deciding,’ he said.
‘I thought you were a gentleman. You’re just an asshole.’
‘Shut up.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I won’t. You want my help, you better start helping me. Untie me. Or you’re going to have to shoot me, because I’m not cooperating with you anymore.’
He made a sigh of exasperation. ‘This is why they didn’t have women on ships of old.’
‘You told me before I picked my friends badly. You picked yours worse. You get to pick again, at least for now.’
‘Danny!’ Gar’s voice rumbled from the deck.
Danny shoved her onto the bed. ‘Pretend. We don’t got time for your plan.’ And he hurried back up the stairs. She heard the galley door smack open, heard Gar demand in a low voice, Where’s she at?, heard Danny answer in a mumble that Claudia was scared, downstairs, he’d let her try to take a nap, keep her out of the way.
She tried to wriggle her hands free from the rest of the rope. The rope gouged her skin. She heard Danny saying, ‘I don’t think so.’
Claudia yanked her right hand free. Screw being bait. She jumped up from the bed, huddled in the closet. Wire hangers jangled above her head, tangled in her hair. She needed a weapon; she clawed the hangers free from her head.
The hanger. Make it into a loop of wire, a garrote, grab him from behind, choke the air out of him.
She grabbed one, twisted it hard, unraveling the spiral of wire at the top. Another twist. Another. Heavy footsteps pounding on the stairs, Danny screaming to wait a goddamned minute. Fists hitting flesh, hard, the unmistakable pop of knuckle against jaw.
Not enough time. She dropped the hanger, looped her hand around the length of rope hanging down from her wrist. Maybe not long enough. Nothing, she had nothing.
The stateroom door flew open, smacked against the closet door. She saw Gar, shirtless, his back a scrimshaw of gaudy tattoos, a mass of muscle moving underneath the faded inks. ‘You ready for-’ He stopped for a second, seeing the empty bed. But she couldn’t spring out at him, the open stateroom door jamming up against the closet door.
She was trapped.
Gar glanced around, saw the sliver of her in the closet, smiled with half his mouth. ‘Hidin’ don’t help.’
Claudia took a step sideways in the closet. Nothing in here, nothing to help her. Her fear tasted like smoke in her mouth.
‘Change of plan, Officer. But you’ll like it.’ Gar slid the closet door open, grabbed Claudia by the hair, yanked her out of the dark narrow space. Shoved her to the bed. His pale chest looked wide as a door, his arms like pile drivers. She wriggled away from him. ‘You don’t fight me, you make it nice, I’ll protect you from my boy. He’s not gonna be happy, you gettin’ what he likes. Oh, no. He might cut your eyes out when we’re done. So you be a good girl and fuck nice and I’ll-’
Claudia punched him, hard, across the jaw. He blinked, frowned, and blood welled up in the corner of his mouth. He cussed and backhanded her, the knuckles of his hand like rocks against her jaw. Little black flowers blossomed in front of her; he held down her throat, pressed his weight into her legs.
‘I’m gonna fuck all the fight out of you, honey.’ He grabbed her head and started pulling her up from the bed when the shot rang and she heard a sound like a hard thump on a melon. Blood exploded from Gar’s nose, his mouth, spraying Claudia. She screamed. He fell on her, and she kicked out from under him, wriggling along the headboard, tumbling to the floor off the bed.
Danny kept the gun pressed to the back of Gar’s head. He stared at Claudia.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Oh. That’s done.’ Then he grinned at her, proud of himself, the dragon slayer. ‘Are you all right?’
Her vocal cords turned to ice. ‘You killed him.’
Danny pulled the gun away from the blasted back of Gar’s head. ‘Sure I did.’ Danny seemed to not quite believe his new bad-ass status, staring at Gar, as though the big man’s shoulders would suddenly hitch with breath.
She stood, her jaw aching, her foot hurting from the broken toe. ‘The redhead will come. Or maybe he heard the shot.’ Oh, God, he’ll kill Ben.
Danny turned the gun toward her. ‘You could at least thank me.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Don’t shoot me.’
He tilted his head at her and she didn’t like the dead, flat look in his eyes. No shuddering shakes over having just killed a man. The fact was done, filed, out of mind.
‘I won’t leave Ben at his mercy,’ she said. She moved toward the door; he followed her with the gun.
‘Stop, Claudia.’
She stopped.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to radio for help.’
She expected him to argue with her, order her to stop, but there was only the silence of the waves brushing the hull of the boats. Then the rev of an engine. Not theirs. Jupiter’s.
‘Oh, no,’ Claudia said.
‘Stay,’ Danny said.
She heard Jupiter’s motor rev again, and Miss Catherine swayed.
‘If we’re still roped to them…’ she started and he lowered the gun.
She ran up the stairs, through the galley, and peered through the galley door’s window out onto the deck. Jupiter was free from them, the lines cut. Gunning away from them. She could see Redhead in the flying bridge, hunkered down low, steering.