Back bay, p.53
Back Bay, page 53
part #1 of Peter Fallon Series
Fallon could have made it easily if he’d jumped for the Peter, but Evangeline had hit the water in panic, and, as the Peter pulled away, she was sucked down into its wake. For a terrifying moment, Fallon thought she had gone into the propellers.
He dove and was beside her in an instant. She had taken a mouthful of the harbor and was struggling, fighting, instead of treading water. He wrapped an arm around her. He told her to relax. His presence settled her. After a moment, she didn’t need to hold onto him, and they swam together back to the dock.
Peter hauled himself out of the water, then helped her. “Are you all right?”
“I will be,” she said weakly.
He looked toward the Peter, barely visible in the fog. He could make out the figure of Jack Ferguson clinging to the stern. He jumped into a small Boston whaler moored next to Rule’s space. He pulled the ignition wires out of the control panel, touched them in the correct sequence, and the engine kicked over.
“We can’t even see them, Peter,” said Evangeline.
“We’ll follow their wake.”
The Peter was already skimming past the waterfront restaurants and heading toward the outer harbor. William Rule had navigated this route so many times in his good life that the fog was no more an impediment than a slight easterly chop.
Ferguson managed to get a leg out of the water and haul himself onto the deck. Rule looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t let go of the wheel. He was going too fast.
Ferguson leveled the gun at him. “Turn this thing around.”
Rule laughed.
“I said turn it around.”
The panic was gone. William Rule realized that it was over, no matter what happened to the tea set. He was finished. If he couldn’t convince the world that his tea set had been authentic, he would not give the Pratts the chance to prove that it had been false. “You’ll have to shoot me, Jack.”
Through a break in the fog, Fallon and Evangeline glimpsed the Peter. Fallon corrected his course and fed the outboard more gas.
“I will shoot you if you don’t turn this thing around,” said Ferguson.
“No you won’t.” Rule looked over his shoulder. “And you know why? Because you’re too decent. You’re a sucker.”
Ferguson stepped across the deck. Rule pulled a fillet knife from the knapsack beside him. “Don’t try to wrestle the wheel away from me, Jack. I’ll cut you open like fuckin’ codfish. You want to stop me, shoot me in the back of the head. Because it’s all over for me, Jack. The tea set’s ruined me. If you can get it ashore, you’ve got a whole new life to enjoy. So take a tip from a guy who should know. When you get the chance, kill your enemy. Don’t try to nickel-and-dime him to death. Don’t mess up his apartment and try to scare him when he figures out you’ve killed a Carrington. Don’t try to get him drunk and hope he drinks himself to death. Put a new set of nostrils in the back of his head and kiss him goodbye.”
Ferguson raised the gun.
Rule looked around. “No balls, Jack. You have no balls. I’ve got ’em to rent. That’s why I’ve lived the way I have, and you’ve ended up in the gutter.”
The Peter streaked out past Castle Island and Thompson’s Island, past the unmarked grave of a long-decayed cargo sloop called the Reckless, and out toward the open sea.
The outboard couldn’t keep up, and soon Fallon was circling in the fog, cutting his engines periodically to listen for the cabin cruiser. But the heavy moisture in the air captured sounds, and the Peter was already too far away.
William Rule had decided that he wasn’t going back. His loaded flare gun was on the bulkhead. A quick shot into the gas tank would take him, Ferguson, and the tea set to the bottom. His troubles would be over, and trouble was all he could see ahead of him.
Ferguson held the pistol so that it was close to Rule’s ear. “For the last time.”
Rule laughed. “You can’t shoot a man in the back of the head, Jack. You just can’t.”
Jack Ferguson knew that Rule was right. William Rule had tried to destroy his life. Jack Ferguson had lived for the moment when he would avenge himself. The moment had arrived, and he couldn’t do it. He looked at the strongbox. It was finally within his grasp. If he pulled the trigger, the tea set would be his, and the murderer would be punished. In the pit of his stomach, Ferguson had known all along that Rule had killed Jeffrey Carrington.
He raised the gun. He aimed. He told himself that Rule was no different than the assassin who had done Rule’s killing. His hand squeezed the gun, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. He was too decent to shoot a man in cold blood. He lowered the pistol. He wished he had the stomach to kill Billy Rulick.
After twenty minutes at high speed, the Boston whaler ran out of gas. Fallon and Evangeline were left adrift in the fog with no oars and no means of signaling. The air was thick and gray and quiet. They could see nothing but each other and a small carpet of water around them.
“Dammit!” Fallon slammed his hands against the wheel.
“You’d never catch them in this boat.”
“We have to keep trying.” He wouldn’t admit that it was over.
He stood up and tried to listen for the engines, although he had no way of following. He cocked his head one way, then another, but he heard nothing. For almost five minutes, he gazed silently into the fog. He had never felt more helpless in his life.
Evangeline shivered and drew her arms around herself. They were both soaked from their plunge into the harbor, and the air temperature was only about sixty degrees. Cold water was dripping from Fallon’s hair and running down his neck. He tried to ignore it.
He slipped down into the bow of the boat and pulled his knees up against his chest. His cotton shirt was plastered to his skin. Depression was closing in around him like the fog. “I didn’t even get to see it.”
She left her seat and joined him in the bow. “Maybe you’re lucky. I saw it. It was beautiful, but all I could think of was the pain it caused.” She shivered again. “It wasn’t worth it.”
Then they heard the explosion. It seemed to vibrate through the fog and water, and the small boat began to roll on the swell. According to the compass, the sound came from the east, the direction the Peter had taken. They both knew what it was. They moved closer to each other.
“Poor Jack,” said Evangeline softly. Her body shuddered with the cold.
“It’s gone,” said Peter. “It’s gone to the bottom.”
“For good.”
He gazed to the east. The fog was moving up the scale from dark gray toward white. The sun had risen. “Maybe not.”
“Forget about it, Peter.” She had dug it up. She had seen it. Wherever it was now, it couldn’t hurt her. She didn’t want it to hurt them. “Forget about it.”
“I can’t forget about it. You can’t ever forget about it.” Fallon was getting colder.
“No matter how hard you look, you’ll never find it. You’ll just destroy yourself. For what?”
He realized he didn’t know.
He shivered.
She said his name. He put his arm around her, and the two bodies shivered together. He wished they had a blanket.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM MARTIN is the New York Times bestselling author of ten novels, an award-winning PBS documentary, and a cult classic horror movie, too. His first novel, Back Bay, introduced treasure-hunting hero Peter Fallon, who has now appeared in five novels, and spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list. Since then Martin has been telling stories of the great and the anonymous in American history, from the Pilgrims to the victims of 9/11. His novels, including Cape Cod, Annapolis, City of Dreams, and The Lincoln Letter, have established him as “a storyteller whose smoothness equals his ambition” (Publishers Weekly). He lives near Boston with his wife and has three grown children. In 2005, he was the recipient of the prestigious New England Book Award, given to “an author whose body of work stands as a significant contribution to the culture of the region.”
ALSO BY WILLIAM MARTIN
The Lost Constitution
Harvard Yard
Citizen Washington
Annapolis
The Rising of the Moon
Nerve Endings
Cape Cod
Acclaim for Back Bay
“A clever and entertaining blend of history, family saga, and mystery.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Adventure spiced with history and laced with mystery… Martin has plotted an intricate tale and moves with facility between past and present.”
—John Barkham Reviews
“Excellent… Martin has effectively captured the flavor of the past without sentimentality or pedantry.”
—Library Journal
“This mystery/adventure is no Beacon Hill tea party, but a Southie-style rouser, starring several generations of Yankee tycoons—the crafty Pratts—and their immigrant-descended allies and enemies… An inventive plot with narrow escapes and stop-watch action.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Thank you for buying this e-book, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest e-books and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
Contents
WELCOME
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION
MAP
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY WILLIAM MARTIN
ACCLAIM FOR BACK BAY
NEWSLETTERS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
Copyright © 1979 by William Martin
Introduction copyright © 2013 by William Martin
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.hachettebookgroup.com
www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First ebook edition: April 2013
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
ISBN 978-1-4555-2550-8
William Martin, Back Bay
