“Snoozeville with the septuagenarians in there, right?”
His heavier friend placed a hand over his heart. “Please make my day and tell me you’re a whiskey drinker.”
“On another day, I would be. I’m looking for this boat and was hoping someone at the clubhouse could help me.” She unfolded her picture of the cruiser.
“If you’re asking about boats, you’ve come to the right place. I’m Bud, and this is Jim.” The heavy man pointed to himself with his cigar-holding hand, then pointed to his friend.
“Ellie.”
“Tell you what, Ellie. I’ll answer your questions about that boat if you have a little sip of whiskey with us. Our goal is to finish this bottle, and we could use the help.” Bud offered her the bottle, no glass.
Johnny Walker Blue. Very expensive. Very tempting. And arguing with these guys would take far longer than swallowing a quick drink. She grabbed the bottle and took a sip.
“Come on now,” Bud said. “Take a real drink, then we’ll talk.”
She took a long draw this time, and she felt the warmth of the liquid fill her stomach.
“Now that’s a whiskey drinker,” Bud said with approval. “So, here’s the thing about your boat. That’s a Gibson Cabin Yacht, one of the big ones.”
“A 5900 series, I think,” Jim added.
“It’s a hell of boat.” Both men nodded, sure that they were in agreement that it was a damn fine boat.
“I know what kind of boat it is.” Ellie tried not to sound too testy. “I really need to find it.”
“You got a scavenger hunt going with that other guy or something?” Bud asked.
“What other guy?”
“I got a confession for you,” Bud said. “Me and Jim don’t know squat about cabin cruisers. We’re sailboat men ourselves. But we were down by the marina about half an hour ago. A guy asked us about Gibson Cabin Yachts and showed us a picture a lot like that one and said it was a 5900.”
“Red hair, not too tall?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, sort of a funny-looking fellow if you ask me,” Bud said.
“He’s a friend of mine. We’re both looking for the same boat. Like I said, it’s urgent.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell us your friend’s name?” Jim asked. “The one who owns the boat?”
“It’s not like any guy’s going to be embarrassed about having a visit from a woman like you,” Bud added.
“Ed Becker. Do you know him?”
“Now why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Bud said. “Walk past the yacht club’s slips, then you’ll get to the marina. Ed’s on the fourth row – is that right, Jim?”
Ellie thanked them and was already heading toward the water when Jim called out behind her, “The fourth row of slips to the east. Then take a left. He’s about halfways down, on the right. Drag your buddies on back here. We’ll get another bottle.”
ELLIE FOLLOWED THEIR directions along the shoreline, walking at first, and then breaking into a fast jog along the boardwalk. Cold air burned her lungs, and a damp heat began to build inside her zipped coat. When she reached the boat slips at the marina, she slowed her pace, mindful of the sound of her heavy breaths and footsteps on the concrete beneath her.
She counted as she walked, four rows. Scanning the marina, she wondered if she had a good enough eye for boats to recognize Ed’s, even with a picture. As her eyes ran across the boats moored to the right side of the pier, she compared each to the features that stood out to her from the picture. Big. Windows. Raised cabin. They all looked the same.
As she neared the middle of the pier, the job of identifying Ed Becker’s boat became considerably easier. Her eyes were still adjusting to the absence of streetlight, but a man’s dark figure stood out against the white back of one of the boats. He was leaning against the outside of the boat’s cabin, peering through the edge of a set of double doors that led inside. Even with the moonlight as her only illumination, Ellie recognized that profile. It was Flann McIlroy.
She exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Flann. It was Flann. She’d found him, and no one with a Slavic accent had put him in an emergency room.
Ellie waved, trying to get his attention, but Flann was fixated on whatever he was watching in the cabin. She walked slowly toward him, each gentle step sounding louder than the last among the unoccupied, darkened boats. With four boats between her and Flann, she was reluctant to move any closer. Presumably Ed Becker was inside his boat, and Flann did not want him to know he was being watched. Walking along the pier, Ellie felt as if she glowed in the dark.
She lowered her body to the ground and began to crawl along the right edge of the pier so any view Becker might have of her would be blocked by other boats. She also got a better look at Flann. He held his weapon at his chest, hands set to fire if necessary. She crawled faster.
As she quickened her pace, her leg caught a loose nail head protruding from a plank in the pier. She sucked in her air to suppress the cry in her throat, then continued her crawl. Just two boats away now, but Flann was too focused on whatever he was watching to feel her eyes on him.
She was still watching Flann when a high-pitched chirp penetrated the silence. It was coming from her hip. She smacked the side of her cell phone and saw the incoming text message through the small window. #1 Jess. Jess had identified as one of his assailants the first of the photographs she faxed to him. Number one was Vitali Rostov.
Just as Ellie slapped her phone, she heard Flann move on the boat in front of her. He’d made a sound, on Becker’s boat, just feet away from Becker. She watched Flann pull his body back from the glass doors of the boat. She didn’t dare move as she watched him freeze too. He waited three beats, then leaned to look inside the cabin again. She held her breath and convinced herself that Flann could talk his way out of the situation if Becker saw him.
It happened so fast that she had a hard time later remembering what Flann had said. Flann swung his entire body to the right, stepping directly in front of the boat’s cabin entrance. Then he cried out. She would replay the video in her head over and over again on an endless loop, but the sound was lost. It was loud though. Urgent. Panicked. Abrupt. Maybe he had yelled, “No.”
By the time Flann rushed through the double doors, Ellie was moving too, out of her crawl stance and into a full sprint. She pulled her gun from her holster. Twist, then up, the Glock was at the ready. She chose speed over silence now. She jumped from the pier onto the boat’s stern, but as the weight of her body landed, she heard a louder noise than she’d prepared herself for. It wasn’t the sound of her boots on the boat. It was a pop, followed by two more. Three shots. Three gunshots.
Moving quickly through the cabin entrance, Ellie found herself alone in a sleeping cabin. She walked more cautiously to a doorway at the end of the bulkhead, then held her breath as she slowly pushed the door open from the side. To her left, Ed Becker had collapsed on a small couch. The bottom of his face was gone, replaced by a hollow red cavity of bone and skin. To her right, Flann sat with his back against the wall, his legs splayed in front of him. One dark red hole pierced his neck above his left shirt collar. A flower of red blossomed across the right side of his shirt.
There had been one, two, three gunshots. Her senses competed for her complete attention. As she tried to comprehend the visual, she heard different noises. In front of her, then behind her. A scurry along the right side of the deck, past the cabin, and then gone. The department would try to convince her later that she should have looked – that if she’d really heard the noises she described, her instincts would have carried her out of the cabin, down the pier, after whoever it was who was responsible for making those sounds. But in that moment, all she could think about was the hole in Flann’s throat, the wound in his stomach, the amount of blood that indicated massive internal damage.