Five minutes later, they were speeding down the center of the bay, Weir on the bridge, guiding the little craft around the yachts and buoys and moorings, throwing up a rooster tail of water as he carved into a stretch of open harbor and shoved the throttle all the way forward. He could see the settling wake of Lady of the Bay ahead of them, disappearing into the glassy calm of the early-morning harbor. Becky stood beside him, still in her black velvet dress, hugging herself against the chill. Jim yelled over the roar of the engine. “Go get the anchor line clear and cut it off at the cleat — there’s a knife in the tool chest!”
Becky vanished into the cabin, then reappeared on the fore deck. “How are you going to get aboard?”
“Get the anchor line clear!”
“It’s clear!”
“Cut it off!”
“It’s off, damn it!”
Jim could see the stern of Cantrell’s yacht now, squarely between the jetties forming the harbor mouth. The big boat was picking up speed as she approached the open sea. Outside the jetties, the ocean rocked deeply with the swell and its color deepened to near black and spray blew off the whitecaps, to dart windward in the breeze. Weir heard the engines of Lady of the Bay groan louder and lower, saw the settling of her stern as the prop blades dug in.
“Becky! Get back up here!”
She nearly tipped over in the chopping motion of the little boat as she reached his hand and rode his yank all the way back to the bridge. He already was yelling out the only directions he could think of to make this thing work. “Cut close, stay with her, then fall back. Don’t press it — the swell is wicked.”
He jumped to the deck and crouched for balance against the fore hull, took the anchor in his right hand and payed out line with his left. Ahead, he could see Lady of the Bay hit the full chop of the sea, plowing through with a majestic nonchalance, losing not a bit of speed at all. Becky swung the Sea Urchin wide to port, aiming her with the swell, and with a surge of velocity bore down on a collision course for the yacht. The engine screamed when they hit the open-water swell; the bow left the water and the stern popped out and the prop cut nothing but air. They landed with a bone-crushing jolt that nearly sent Weir overboard. When he glanced up at Becky, she was hunkered down like a racer, hair streaking, a wholly fearless being. She brought Sea Urchin astern, then cut the throttle to nothing. The little boat pitched in the swell. She rose, swaying precariously as her momentum died and the wake of the yacht swept her up again. It was like being pushed skyward by some huge hand. Weir felt his knees bunch and tighten. At the apex of this rise, he threw the anchor aboard Lady of the Bay, yanked down to set the flukes, then, feeling Sea Urchin beginning her deep drop and praying the anchor had bitten into something solid, he jumped into the sky and started scrambling up the rope. It was like holding the tail of a sea monster. He felt the rock and surge of the ship above him, felt the wracking tug as she lifted over the swell and almost pulled his arms out at the shoulders. He banged hard against the stern, sucking in the billowing clouds of exhaust. Fist over fist he climbed, his body reeling, his boots sliding on the wet hull. Then he was high enough to see the polished teak gunwales. He whapped hard against the stern again, rolling with the yaw, but finally got his hands around the railing. He waited for a nudge from the ocean, and just as the yacht pitched down into a trough, Weir pulled up and rode the momentum up over the gunwale and onto the gleaming deck of Lady of the Bay.
He hit hard, rolled, righted himself, and stood. Ray was waiting for him, ten feet away. The bore of his .357 looked big enough to crawl into. There was a spray of blood on his white tuxedo shirt.
Ray lowered the gun. “Hell, it’s good to see you,” he said. He looked past Jim toward Sea Urchin, waved to Becky, and gave her a thumbs-up. Jim turned, to see Becky falling back, rocking deeply in the swell. She looked up at them from the bridge.
Raymond slipped the gun into his waistband and regarded Jim with clear dark eyes. “Don’t worry — the prints on the rose weren’t mine. That’s what Robbins tried to tell you, isn’t it?”
“That’s what he said.”
Raymond sighed and shook his head. His shoulders slumped as he looked past Jim again, toward the shore. “I never thought Robbins would throw in with them. I wonder how they got to him. I thought he was tougher than that.”
“Throw in with whom?”
“Dennison. Cantrell. Paris. They’ve been manipulating all this from the start. Or haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Jim felt as if he’d jumped off a diving board, only to hang midair: Hope wouldn’t let him fall; dread wouldn’t let him rise. “Your prints, Ray. Your prints — nobody else’s.”
Raymond came across the deck to him, took both of Jim’s arms in his hands, and shook him urgently. “Be careful, Jim. You’ve got to understand, that’s exactly what they want you to believe.”
The gun in Raymond’s waistband was exposed, just a foot from Jim’s unresisting hands.
“Go ahead and take that piece if you want it,” Raymond said. “But think, Jim. Think first. Look what a perfect setup they’ve got now. Cantrell killed Annie, Dennison covered it up, they got their prime suspect to confess — then they offed him. It’s perfect, except for two things — you and me. They knew no matter how tight a case they made against Goins, we’d never go for it. You told Brian as much, back in Robbins’s office. So what do they do? They try to pit us, like fighting dogs. Go ahead, pull that gun out of your jacket and waste me. Or here, use mine. That’s exactly what they want.”
Jim couldn’t speak. The rushing sound in his ears suddenly quieted. In the silence that followed, he felt a deep, spacious calm settling over him. Everything was becoming clear.
“Don’t believe me, Jim — I might not if I were you. Come ask Cantrell. Get it straight from the source.”
Ray turned and climbed the ladder up to the bridge.
Inside the cabin, Jim took it all in: the carpeted floor, the richly paneled walls, the instruments recessed in wood, the captain’s and navigator’s chairs, the compass showing a southerly course, the wheel self-correcting on autopilot, and C. David Cantrell sprawled against the fore wall still in his bathrobe, a widening patch of red on his right shoulder. His eyes locked on Jim’s, wild and clear as a wounded animal’s. His jaw was clenched in a silent grimace.
Raymond walked over and prodded him with his toe. “Tell Jim what you told me five minutes ago, Davey. Don’t leave out the part about the fingerprints and the rose.”
Cantrell’s eyes darted from Jim to Raymond, then back to Jim again. “I never... I never hurt her. Never.”
Raymond, hands on his hips, looked down at Cantrell. “Never hurt her? Twenty-seven times with your kitchen knife didn’t hurt her? Oh, man.”
Ray stepped away and turned, and before Jim could read the movement, Ray pulled out his revolver and blew away the top of Cantrell’s good shoulder. A slab of muscle and flesh slapped against the bulkhead. Cantrell shrieked, dug his feet into the carpet, and pushed, as if trying to press himself into the crack between floor and wall.
Raymond watched him, then turned to Jim. “He’s playing to the new audience. Still thinks he can set one friend against another. Arrogance. Pure arrogance.”
Ray looked again at Cantrell, who raised a hand for protection and whispered, “No.” Raymond blasted a hole through the beseeching palm. For an instant, Jim could see one of Cantrell’s terrified eyes through the gaping wound.