The deepest kill, p.27
The Deepest Kill, page 27
Rachael kept up the pressure, shouting to be heard over the rain. “You’ll fall off, and the next wave will carry it too far away for you to ever catch it. Then there will be nothing but you and the water. With luck you’ll already be in a coma by then, so you won’t feel the sea drowning your lungs as you sink.”
Dani fired again but absently, barely looking at them as she pulled the trigger, cover fire rather than an attempt to actually hit a target. Five shots so far—little comfort since, assuming a full cartridge, Dani would have ten more.
Ellie guessed that Rachael had vastly overstated the symptoms, more likely to occur over the course of several days instead of several minutes. But why underestimate the power of suggestion on a person desperate, frightened, in a hurry, who had been under a terrible, secret strain for over two weeks. Of course Dani’s limbs felt heavy and her mind felt sluggish, but they needed her to blame that on the CDI. Maybe, just maybe, she’d get scared enough to give up.
But even if she did—then what?
Dani threw off the last of the ropes, which coiled through the water like a tangle of snakes. She didn’t need strength to slide it out from between the gunwale and the engines; Gulf waters lifted it for her. The boat had sunk that much.
“We need to knock her out, find life jackets for all of us, then we can use the jet ski to tow Dani to land,” Ellie said to Rachael. Dani just said it had a compass. What had seemed like a crazy idea now appeared to be their only hope. As long as they kept heading east they’d have to hit land eventually, and unlike Dani, she didn’t need to go directly back to the Post estate to try to come up with an alibi. Any land would do. All Ellie wanted to do was survive.
“Great,” Rachael agreed. “How do we get close enough to her to do that without getting shot?”
“Hope the storm covers me? When I move, you find the life jackets, put one on, and get one for me, one for her.”
Rachael glanced down the steps, where the water level in the lower cabin had reached a halfway point, and shuddered. Ellie’s plan to charge an armed woman must now sound preferable. “Not there,” Ellie said. “There’s more under the captain’s chair.”
She stood up. Rachael moved to stop her, grab an arm, then must have realized the futility of it. Shot or drowned, they might soon be dead either way.
Don’t hesitate.
Ellie crossed the deck, clinging to any stationary object she found and sloshing through the inches of water accumulated. The noise and motion of the waves covered any sound she might have made, and Dani needed both hands to battle the waves for control of the jet ski. Ellie grasped the hook of the short chain, swinging the heavy wooden pulley at the end of it.
* * *
“Is that it?” the colonel asked.
A young man who reeked of too much aftershave asked, “Why are we looking for a boat when we’re supposed to be looking for a missile?” Michael wanted to slug him.
“So it’s radar,” the general said.
“It’s a scan,” Tomas corrected. “The system has broken through a tropical storm to pinpoint a pleasure craft barely more than forty feet long, without motion and without a heat plume.”
“That was fast,” the general admitted.
“But it’s a boat,” a man earlier referred to as “Senator” pointed out. “If it was a hypersonic, we’d all be dead by now.”
Tomas waited for Martin Post to respond, but the man didn’t seem to be listening to them. So Tomas said, “If it was a missile it would have been fired from another continent or one of the oceans. It would be identified in seconds, with Vandenberg notified immediately.”
“Unless it comes from the east,” the congressman from Florida intoned. “That’s why we need another Vandenberg-type base on the East Coast.”
“You just want the funding channeled to Highland County,” another argued. “No one in western Europe is going to bomb us.”
“Want to bet your life on that?”
“Having a base just creates a desirable target. How do your orange growers feel about that?”
Michael wanted to scream, but only raised his voice. “How do we get to it? The boat?”
No one answered him.
“The point, gentlemen,” Tomas insisted, “is that this is simply a program. The infrastructure, the satellites, are already there. In other words—”
“It’s basically free,” the general finished.
A silence fell, in awe of that delicious concept.
“Got it.” Martin Post rose abruptly and said, “Let’s go.”
Michael couldn’t be sure to whom he spoke but felt pretty sure it wasn’t the guys in the tailored suits. He and Luis snapped into the man’s wake.
“Wait,” the general said. “You found a boat in the middle of the Gulf in a hurricane, using other people’s satellites?”
“Tropical storm,” the colonel corrected.
The general didn’t wait for Martin to respond. The man showed no signs of hearing the question, only continued toward the door. “If you pull that off . . . I’d guess you’ve got the bid.”
Tomas blanched. “Sir—surely the Coast Guard . . . couldn’t you stay here and explain the system—”
Martin did pause at this, slowing his stride only long enough to glance at the men assembled. “You can take care of it. You’re doing fine.”
The young man gulped.
Michael followed the genius out the door.
Chapter 47
Ellie had restrained, handcuffed, shot, and even stabbed another human being at some point in her career. She’d never bludgeoned one.
She swung the block pulley with the full length of her arm, from down near the sloshing floor, up and around, then down, down to the back of Dani’s neck.
But before it struck, Dani turned. Animal instinct or acute hearing had alerted her—though not quickly enough. The wood block struck her shoulder and right ear. She dropped the gun to put a hand to her bleeding ear, and in an instant the water claimed the Glock as if it had never existed. Dani moved too fast to notice. She launched herself at Ellie with a snarl.
Ellie stepped back. Dani’s foot slipped against the slick jet ski seat and her shins cracked across the stern, but she managed to grab Ellie’s T-shirt with both hands. Ellie tried to hit her again with the heavy pulley—and failed as her own body slammed back onto the fiberglass deck and all air left her lungs.
Dani became her second priority, breathing her first. The rain drove itself into her nose and mouth and she sucked in both water and oxygen, choked, drowning while still on the boat. Dani now sat on top of her, drawing back a fist.
Ellie jerked her head to one side so fast she heard her neck snap. Dani’s knuckles caught only the side of her head, behind the ear—and a lot of the deck. Dani howled again, this time more in pain than anger.
Ellie’s shoes gave her more traction against the wet deck than Dani’s bare feet, and the trophy wife diet didn’t leave her attacker with great bulk. She bucked hard and Dani fell to one side.
Ellie could move a lot faster without a gun pointed at her. She left Dani to shoot up and over the stern, ignoring the electric crackle and subsequent roar of the lightning overhead. The jet ski bobbed merrily just past the now half-submerged engines and she leapt for it, their only lifeline. She’d circle back to get Rachael and the life jackets and Dani. And maybe Dani, depending on—
Midair, a hand grabbed her ankle and she fell across the stern and engine, smashing her cheek against its cover. Her outstretched fingers grazed the rim of the jet ski, and after that, nothing but water. All around her, nothing but water, her body weightless and free.
Then a punch to her back as Dani used her as a steppingstone to get to the jet ski. Or she simply fell out of the boat, Ellie couldn’t tell, because now Dani pushed her away, down, into the waves. The Wicked nudged her to one side, a loose rope brushing against her wrist.
Ellie kicked, flailed, wanting only to break the surface, but Dani’s hands went around her neck and squeezed, not allowing her to rise. Ellie rammed both her arms up in front of herself and slammed those out to the side, ripping Dani’s hands away from her throat. Salt water immediately stung in the deep gashes left by perfectly manicured nails.
A kick upward and she felt air, managed to suck in a few molecules before a wave hit her and filled her mouth. The entire world seemed to be roaring and the water kept her blind. Something pushed her below the surface and held her there, but only as an impersonal lump.
The jet ski.
She grasped its edge, pulled her head out of the water. The mini-craft tipped wildly sideways but she didn’t care. It could capsize and still stay afloat—that’s what they were designed to do.
She gulped in air in hacking, gasping breaths that would never be enough, coughing and gagging and gasping in more. Then, through hazy, salt-water-stained vision she saw Dani, trying to swim in the insane water, moving around the inert engines and heading for the jet ski.
And behind her, Ellie felt a new force approach. Something else was in the water with her, large and alive.
Just as she pictured a shark, jaws gaping wide, the sinking boat bumped into her, and Rachael grabbed her shirt. Hauling her on board wasn’t much of a trick—the Wicked had sunk so low that the top of the gunwale barely cleared the water.
Just enough stability remained for Rachael to help Ellie shrug into a life jacket.
Ellie drew in enough oxygen to shout, “The jet ski!”
“I’ve got it.” Rachael held the rope attached to the nose of it. Dani could climb aboard, but she wasn’t going anywhere without them.
Besides, something had arrested her progress. The blond woman struggled with something below the surface as the crests and troughs hid, then revealed, then hid her again.
“Dani, hang on!” Ellie called as she climbed onto the jet ski, and off the boat—though very little separated the two now. The Gulf waters began to cascade over the gunwale into the boat, the last stage of a quick end.
Its key dangled from the console, start switch molded in a bright red. Please start, she prayed. Please start.
It started. It also had a compass, large and visible, as advertised. All she needed was her partner—
The craft lurched wildly as Rachael climbed onto it from the rapidly sinking Wicked. She wrapped trembling arms around Ellie’s waist. “There she is—”
Only ten, perhaps twelve feet separated them from the thrashing woman. Ellie turned the throttle.
And the Wicked sank.
One minute it was hovering, the square of its hardtop still protruding from the waves. The next, the sea swallowed it whole without leaving the slightest shred of evidence behind.
And Dani disappeared as well. Ellie thought she could see the last shadow of light-colored hair sinking through the blue depths, but that might have been a reflection of the clouds.
She must have been tangled in the ropes, Ellie thought. That’s what she’d been struggling with. And couldn’t extract herself before the ship that she sank took her down with it.
Neither of them had the ability to dive and recover the woman, or a place to perform CPR even if they could. Ellie felt numb from more than the cold rain.
How could she tell Martin about Dani? Not only a betrayal, but a betrayal upon betrayal of the deepest kind, the deepest cut, the deepest kill. The person closest to him had destroyed his only child and his only grandchild, in a murderous perfect storm of hatred, resentment, and greed.
When a wave tried to shove them over, Rachael’s arms tightened and Ellie snapped back to the present. Dani might be gone, but they were still alive. For now.
Rachael shouted, “Where are we—?”
“East.” Ellie twisted the throttle and the jet ski leapt into a wave. With an increase in speed it seemed to surf from the top of one wave only to plunge into a valley, then climb the next. The motion and the wind tried their best to peel the two women from the craft and each raindrop struck their skin like an ice-cold needle.
A light flashed, and thunder cracked through the sky in the crystal-clear notes of shattering glass. Rachael shouted, her voice a bit unbalanced, “You sure this is normal?”
“Oh yeah.” Ellie spoke through gritted teeth. “Totally normal.”
“And you know where you’re going?”
“Trust me.”
She aimed the speck of a vehicle through the pulsing waves for the coast, where soon the mirrored front of the Post estate twinkled like a diamond.
Notes and Acknowledgments
I am an omnivorous researcher, devouring information anywhere I can get it, and I utilized many and varied sources for this book. My fellow Rogue Women Writer, Karna Bodman, told me some tales of when her time in the White House took her to defense contractor presentations. My former boss, Larry Stringham, explained which military branches fly which fighter jets. The fellow Mystery Writers of America members in my Florida critique group gave me invaluable feedback.
Of course I perused a number of medical articles and especially the website of NORD, the National Organization for Rare Diseases and their information on central diabetes insipidus. However, full disclosure, the extreme physical ailments in case of dehydration would take much longer to set in than portrayed here. Also, a pathologist told me it’s highly unlikely to notice such an issue in the pituitary with a visual exam—it’s a very small organ.
I found the DOD Contract School podcast helpful, and the book The 300: The Inside Story of the Missile Defenders Guarding America Against Nuclear Attack, by Daniel Was-serbly.
The information about the mysterious deaths of the “Star Wars scientists” is all true, and written about here: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/09/16/star-wars-program/, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-08-mn-185-story.html and https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/religion.-occult.new_age/occult.conspiracy.and.related/Anon%20-%20Conspiracy%20to%20Kill%20the%20SDI%20Scientists.pdf
I’d also like to thank my always supportive siblings and the rest of my family, my terrific agent Vicky Bijur and the staff at her literary agency, and my editor Michaela Hamilton and all the great people at Kensington Books.
Credit: Constance Kelly
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
New York Times bestselling author Lisa Black introduced the characters of Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner in her acclaimed suspense novel That Darkness and continued their story through five novels. She is the author of seven novels in the Theresa MacLean mystery series and two novels written as Elizabeth Becka. This is the third book in the Locard Institute tales. As a forensic scientist at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office, she analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now she is a latent print examiner and CSI for the Cape Coral Police Department in Florida, working mostly with fingerprints and crime scenes.
Lisa is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts and is a Certified Latent Print Examiner and Certified Crime Scene Analyst. She has testified in court as an expert witness over sixty-five times. Her books have been translated into six languages. She lives near Fort Myers, Florida. Visit her on Facebook, Twitter, or at www.lisa-black.com.
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com.
Lisa Black, The Deepest Kill
