“Something… Something in the tunnel. It grabbed me.”
They stood, watching and waiting for some dread thing to come scurrying after them over the sand. But nothing came. Jessie looked at Marla quizzically.
“There was something in there with me. I swear.”
“Let’s go,” Jessie said and marched away. Marla took one last look into the gloom of the tunnel mouth and followed.
Chief of Security Fowler cursed as he shook droplets of scalding hot coffee from his fingers before shoving the raw digits into his mouth. Sucking the still-steaming fluid away, he removed his fingers from his mouth and surveyed the damage. Little pink welts were already forming on his skin—a visual representation of the shooting pain he was feeling as the heat penetrated the sensitive epidermal layers. Sonofabitch.
He placed the coffee cup back on the desk, then thought better of it and hurled the whole sorry mess into the trash can. Returning his attention to the bank of glass-screened monitors in front of him he replayed the footage of the pleasure boat’s last moments one more time. The image was annoyingly grainy. In fact “grainy” was being far too kind; there was so much digital noise on the footage it looked like it had been captured on an island in the Antarctic—during a blizzard. Data from Sentry Maiden would no doubt prove more revealing, but for that he’d have to wait for his men to complete their maneuvers around the island.
The screen told pretty much the whole story, however degraded the image. A pleasure boat had somehow made its way unnoticed to the far side of the island. No proximity alarms had been tripped, no radar alerts forthcoming. Visual contact had been confirmed by a lookout. Thank Christ someone was doing his goddamned job, he thought. He’d dispatched Sentry Maiden immediately and had followed protocol to the letter. In this instance, “protocol” denoted blowing the fucking thing right out of the water. Despite this efficiency, Fowler very much doubted his superiors would be happy with the situation. Far from it. How could a yacht get past all the safeguards and end up that close to the island? That’s what they’d want to know and Fowler would be lacking the answers. They’ll be pissed as all hell and I’m damned if I’m gonna take the fall. He glanced down at the spilled coffee in the trash can. What a mess.
Switching the screens to display current views of the island compounds, Fowler placed his stinging coffee-singed fingers against the cold glass of a monitor. A pair of exotic birds fluttered by the great eaves of the Big House. Palm trees swayed gently in the wind, casting fingerlike shadows across summerhouses and swimming pools alike. No doubt the Lamplighters were slumbering behind shuttered windows, oblivious to the clean up operation being undertaken just a few scant nautical miles away. All quiet on the Western front. Good, long may it remain that way. Sighing heavily he balled his other, good, hand into a fist and left The Snug. Once outside, he’d begin the search for someone to blame for this mess.
Marla and Jessie were working their way across the rocky ledge towards the lighthouse when they saw him. A near-naked figure, lying there on the lowest rocks where the waves churned with foam. Pietro. His body looked broken, his once-perfect skin battered and bleeding. From up here, Marla could not tell if he was breathing. They looked to one another and, without speaking, knew what they must do.
Jessie went first, taking care not to slip on the sheer surface of the rocks as she made her descent. Marla followed at a cautious distance. Climbing down to the treacherous waters was the last thing she wanted to do, but it would take both of them to haul him up to safety—if he was still alive.
Chapter Twenty-One
High above the rocks, in the control room, Vincent took a dirty rag from his pocket and spat on it. Wiping at a patch of dark green mold on the windowpane, he peered out at the three figures approaching his lighthouse.
At first he’d thought they must be Fowler’s boys, come to check up on him again. He hated their little visits, always picking and pecking and messing with his stuff. No business of yours, he always said, best left alone, but it always fell on deaf ears with Fowler’s mob. Bunch of bastards. No matter; this wasn’t the goon squad anyhow, it was young Marla and she’d brought some friends. He hadn’t expected her to come back so soon, certainly not with company. Vincent frowned at the three of them then tore his gaze away from the window. Rifling through drawers and cupboards, he eventually found his rusty old telescope beneath the fat Sudoku puzzle book that had helped him while away many long evenings of late.
He returned to the window and peered out through the ’scope at the three figures as they stumbled over the headland and onto the rocks leading to his door. The one in the middle looked in pretty bad shape. He was all cut up and bloodied like roadkill and Marla and another girl were doing their best to carry him, shouldering an arm each. It looked like thirsty work that was for sure. Sliding the little telescope shut with a click, Vincent made his way over to the kitchen area to get a pot of strong coffee on the boil.
He paused for a moment as the wind rose up outside and rattled the windows. An ill wind brings an ill guest, he thought. Then, no matter, as the coffee began to bubble its welcome in anticipation of the familiar clatter and bang of the door downstairs.
Pietro weighed a good deal heavier than he looked. Marla remembered his weight, his heat, bearing down on her during their brief drunken tryst just hours ago. Then, his movements had been controlled and supported by contracting muscles, yet here on the wind-blasted lighthouse steps he was hanging from her shoulder like a dead weight. She shifted her own weight onto first one leg, then the other, praying the whole time for Jessie to get the bloody door open. A rusty metallic grinding sound told her Jessie had done just that.
“Come on, let’s get him inside,” Jessie said.
They dragged Pietro’s ragged and bleeding body over the threshold and heard him murmur indistinctly as his feet slid from the cool winds outdoors into an even colder puddle of water at the foot of the stairs. He was alive, but only barely.
“Shit, get him onto the steps,” Marla said, really struggling to bear his weight now they’d reached their destination.
His murmurs became agonized groans as they laid him out on the cold hard steps. Marla stretched and rotated her arm in its shoulder socket in an attempt to alleviate the stiffness and pain caused by carrying a grown lad what felt like halfway across the island. Pietro looked terrible. As Marla placed her palm on his burning forehead, his eyes rolled back. He looked, for all the world, like he was going to pass out any moment, which was possibly a good thing. Marla could only guess at the extent of his injuries, but however concussed his brain and broken his insides they had to get him up the stairs to warmth and a bed. Jessie, it seemed, had other plans. No sooner than Pietro’s damaged body had hit the steps, she turned and headed back down to the entrance. Carelessly splashing her way through the puddle, she pulled open the closet doors and wriggled inside frantically.
“Hey, I could do with some help up here.”
No answer, save for Jessie cussing as she bumped her head on something. Marla had no choice but to leave Pietro alone on the steps and went down to see what Jessie was up to. Peering inside the closet, Marla saw the source of the blinking lights she’d noticed on her first visit to the lighthouse. A beaten up old laptop was connected to a nightmare of wires and cables, its little lights blinking like some ancient prop straight out of a retro sci-fi movie. Jessie was typing and clicking furiously at the laptop’s keyboard and trackpad, her face a mask of pure concentration. Droplets of sweat fell from her brow and sizzled on the laptop’s hot plastic casing like raindrops on a barbeque. Jessie chewed anxiously on her lip as she worked. Marla felt almost scared to disturb her.