“This is fantastic,” Jeff said, glancing nervously over his shoulder, terrified that Daggert would show up before they could get into the boat.
Jeff reached out to catch the bow so it wouldn’t bump the end of the dock and eased the boat around to the side of the dock so he and Chipper could jump in. Jeff got a leg over first, planted it on the sturdy bottom of the speedboat before swinging in leg number two.
Chipper ignored Jeff when he reached out his arms to help him in and leapt through the air into the boat instead.
“This is really, really nice of you,” Jeff said.
“Hey, no problem,” the man said. “My name’s Gordon.”
“Hi, Gordon. I’m Jeff.”
“That’s a nice dog you got there. What’s his name?”
“Chipper.”
The man said, “No kidding? That’s a nice name for a dog.”
He moved a lever to his side to put the motor in reverse, and slowly backed the boat out into the lake. Reaching into a small compartment under the dash, he came out with a phone.
“Just got to make a quick call to let someone know I’ll be late,” he said.
Chipper and Jeff dropped into a couple of cushy seats just ahead of the motor. “It’s going to be okay now,” Jeff said to his furry friend.
But Chipper wasn’t looking at the boy. He had his eyes on the man, and both his ears perked up.
Gordon was speaking into his phone, but with the motor rumbling just behind him, Jeff couldn’t make out a word of it.
But Chipper’s sense of hearing was right up there with his sense of smell. He listened for several seconds, then turned to Jeff and barked.
“What is it, sport?” Jeff asked.
Chipper barked again and looked at the phone in Jeff’s hand. The boy glanced down and saw a new message on the screen.
He just told Daggert “I got them.”
Thirty-Three
Gordon kept the boat idling about sixty feet offshore.
“You’re working for them,” Jeff said to the man.
He turned and smiled. “Yep. We’ll just wait here a few minutes until Daggert arrives.”
They could have jumped out of the boat, but what good would that do? It wasn’t as though they could outswim a craft with eighty horsepower strapped to the back of it.
“Please let us go,” Jeff said. “Please.”
“Sorry, kid. You sit there and don’t give me any trouble.”
Chipper and Jeff exchanged glances. Jeff looked like he was losing all hope, but Chipper wasn’t ready to give up. Maybe he could try a very simple strategy.
Attack Gordon.
No high-tech gimmicks. No supersonic sounds. He’d just leap at Gordon and bite him. Clamp his jaws on the man’s arm and bite down hard, like he did with Simmons. If he could hurt the man, maybe he and Jeff could push him overboard. Chipper was pretty sure Jeff would be able to drive the boat. It wasn’t very complicated.
Yes, that’s what he’d do. He’d—
Gordon turned the wheel hard, edged the throttle forward, and headed the boat back into shore. Chipper and Jeff turned their heads in unison to see Daggert striding out to the end of the dock. He gave Gordon a beckoning wave. He was still in his fancy suit and his eyes remained hidden behind his pricey sunglasses, but his right pant leg was ripped, and he was limping. Even from out on the water, they could see dark blood stains.
Jeff bet that when Daggert was running back down those stairs in the old train station, he went through one of them. He wished the injury gave him reason to be optimistic.
Once the bow was a foot from the dock, Daggert, as delicately as a cat, leaned forward, stepped onto it, and pushed his foot against the dock to propel the boat back out. He stepped over the windshield and planted a foot on one of the two cushioned bucket seats. To Gordon, he said, “If that dog starts yawning, put your fingers in your ears.”
“Got it,” he said.
Daggert gave Jeff and the dog one of his devilish smiles. “That was pretty good back there,” he said to Chipper. “That’ll be one of the first things we deactivate when we get a chance. In the meantime, Gordon, you got some tape?”
Gordon reached under the dash and pulled out a roll of duct tape.
Daggert said, “Wrap up that mutt’s snout so he doesn’t have a chance to make us go deaf.”
Chipper growled as Gordon pulled off a two-foot length of tape, but when he saw Daggert pointing his weapon at the boy, he allowed Gordon to wrap the tape around his jaws.
Once finished, Gordon asked Daggert, “Where to?”
“Bailey and Crawford have taken the SUV north to Canfield. We’ll follow the lake up that way, then take the dog off your hands.”
“What about the boy?”
Daggert surveyed the landscape. “We got a whole lake to drown him in.”
“Okay. You’re the boss.”
Gordon turned the steering wheel as far as it would go until he had the boat lined up to the north. As he nudged the throttle forward the engine roared into action. The bow began to lift as they accelerated.
“Jeff!”
The scream came from behind and to Jeff’s right. He whirled around and there, about ten feet behind the boat and just off to the side, was Emily in her small aluminum craft. She had it running flat out and was coming up alongside, but as soon as Gordon gave his boat more gas, they’d leave Emily behind.
“Jump!” Emily shouted as her tiny boat came up beside them.
Daggert and Gordon glanced back to see what was happening. Daggert shouted to Gordon, “Go!”
But Jeff had already scooped Chipper into his arms and had one foot on the edge of the boat, ready to leap, when Gordon hit the throttle.
There was no time to think about it.
He jumped. He tumbled hard into the middle of Emily’s small boat. He and Chipper hit the bottom with great force, Jeff taking most of the impact on his back. He released Chipper, who leapt over the middle seat to greet Emily. He wanted to give her a big lick, but with his snout taped shut had to settle with nuzzling her with his nose.
“What have they done to you?” she asked, using one hand to pick away the tape while steering the outboard motor with the other. She swung it hard, nearly tossing Jeff back out of the boat again. But it instantly put a lot of distance between them and the speedboat, which was speeding away in the opposite direction.
The speedboat started to turn.
Jeff was thrilled Emily had come out of nowhere to help them, but it was going to be a short-lived rescue. Trying to get away from Daggert and Gordon in her boat would be like a turtle trying to outrun a racehorse.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Jeff righted himself and dropped his butt on to the middle seat, facing backwards so he could see Emily and their pursuers.
She had the tape off Chipper and flicked it off her fingers, the wind taking it away.
“Thank you!” Jeff shouted. “But what now?”
Emily kept a strong grip on the throttle. Her jaw was set tight and her eyes were fixed on something in the distance. Jeff turned to see what she was looking at, but there was nothing but open water. He’d only turned away for a second, but in that time the speedboat had gained on them, big time.
The bow was getting so close that it obscured the view of Daggert and Gordon. It looked to Jeff as though their plan was to run them right over. Maybe Daggert had decided it didn’t matter if he got the dog back in one piece. Better to kill them all.
“Emily!” Jeff screamed, pointing.
She didn’t look back. She was either really, really fearless, or really, really stupid. Chipper was barking non-stop. Jeff wondered if he’d make that horrible sound again. But would it have any impact over the din of the motors?