Part 19 (1/2)
”Did you look around downstairs?” Chip asked her as he opened the lids of storage bins on either side of the deck behind the life rings.
”Yes, I looked everywhere for the best thing to ...”
Stab you in the head with. ”I didn't know it was you,” she added defensively at his look, which he had not been able to hide. ”Chip, are you sure you know what you're doing?”
He didn't. But this was no time to worry about it. ”I've got a boat. We're going to put Sam in it, okay? Start trying to wrap him in that blanket.”
He went on hunting for a weapon. The knife would be fine at close range, but he didn't want to get any nearer to Randy than he had to.
About a thousand miles would be good, and so would a guided missile, he thought as he rooted through the boat's contents. A Styrofoam chest contained crushed beer cans. The cubbies by the wheel-house were empty.
As he rummaged, Carolyn stared at him in confusion and the beginnings of her old scorn showed. ”Chip, what do you mean, you've got a-”
She wasn't doing anything. He abandoned his search, helped her spread the blanket and roll Sam onto it.
Sam roused and tried to help, too, which Chip thought was a positive sign. Not great, but something.
”How do you think I got here?” he asked Carolyn while they tied Sam's belt around the blanket to try keeping it on. ”Do you think I swam?”
He waved at the fis.h.i.+ng boat's stern. ”It's back there. We can get in it and get away.”
I hope. There was still the little matter of the stone-dead engine to deal with. ”So get moving.”
She bridled at his tone. Starting to get her wind back, he realized, and that was a good thing, too. But somehow she seemed to think that just Chip's being there was all she needed.
”Move,” he commanded. ”We haven't got much time.”
”Okay, okay.” She knelt alongside Sam again. There was a lot of thick, sticky tape still on the blankets, and she used some of it to secure more of the covering around Sam.
”I don't see why you have to-”
This time he didn't bother answering. The sky was trending rapidly toward full day. And the tide was high again, or nearly. ”Let's get him overboard.”
Which was going to be a good trick all by itself. Chip looked past the big diesel engine of the fis.h.i.+ng boat, over the transom. It was only about a five-foot drop to the smaller craft, but that was plenty far enough to have to try lowering a guy, especially one who seemed to be bleeding to death.
Still, they didn't have much choice. They dragged Sam down the deck, hauled him around so that he hung over the transom feet-first. ”Now what?” Carolyn demanded.
”I'm not sure.” What did she think, that this kind of a situation came with an instruction booklet?
”Well, it was your idea,” she began. ”You should-”
He whirled on her, suddenly near tears. ”I don't know, okay? I don't know what to do; why should I? You're the one who got us here, you're the one who got so loaded you didn't pay attention to what was going on around you.”
Fists clenched, he went on. ”I'm the errand boy, remember? The one you can bully and boss around and steal from. But now I'm trying to fix it, as usual, and you are not helping.”
His voice was shaking. He didn't bother trying to control it. ”So unless you want to end up like that one-”
He pointed at the hatchway. Beyond it in a sc.r.a.pbook lay the evidence of Randy Dodd's handiwork, what he'd done while he was away. A mental picture of the girl in it-what remained of her-popped back into his head.
Along with something else. ”Stay here,” he ordered Carolyn as he strode past her, ignoring her shocked expression.
It wasn't fair, what he'd said to her. It hadn't been her fault, and it was mean of him to suggest that it was. Randy Dodd would've found a way to grab her one way or another, the way he'd grabbed the other ones.
Blaming Carolyn was the easy way, was all. The way to make it all make sense. Which it didn't. And never would. He glanced back at her as he ducked down through the hatchway.
”Carolyn,” he began. ”I'm ...”
Sorry, he would have finished. But she was crying again and refused to look at him.
In the cramped, stinking cabin he s.n.a.t.c.hed the sc.r.a.pbook lying on the fish-cleaning table and riffled through it. The faces of Randy's previous victims flipped by: blonde, redhead, brunette.
A real equal opportunity sicko, he was. But even full of clippings-and, dear G.o.d, some of these pictures were Polaroids-the book was a lot heavier than it should be.
And the pages were thicker. Hurriedly, Chip pulled one of the clear plastic page covers apart. Inside were two sheets of paper, each with clippings and photographs mounted on it, their blank back sides placed together so they formed a single page.
The sc.r.a.pbook was made that way so you could rearrange just one page at a time, Chip realized. You could move the front side without moving the back, or the back without moving the front.
Biting his lower lip, he parted the sheets of paper to look between them and found ... money. Five hundred-dollar bills to a page, four laid horizontally top to bottom, one more vertically.
On each side. So a thousand per page, basically. With sweat-slicked fingers he inspected more of them. Each page was fattened with money. A hundred pages or so ... a hundred thousand right here in the book.
So Roger must have put the money out on the water just as he'd said, and Randy found it. But this wasn't all of it. There should be more somewhere.
Almost a million more, most likely hidden on this boat. But as he examined the one's he'd already located, he realized that there was no point looking for the rest of the cash. Because the bills were identical, and that meant ...
He stuck one of the hundreds into his pocket, stuffed the sc.r.a.p-book down his jacket front, his fingers coming unexpectedly as he did so upon the map he'd found, floating out on the water.
A hand-drawn map scrawled in blue ballpoint on a torn-out sheet of notebook paper, the paper wrapped in clear plastic. Soon after he'd found it, he'd gotten so busy avoiding a watery death that he'd forgotten all about it.
And there was no time for wondering about it now, either. Shoving it down with the worthless bill he'd taken, he turned for a last glance around the cabin in case there was anything more in here that they might be able to use.
There wasn't. Time to get out of here ...
”Looking for something?” The voice came from behind him. Not Carolyn's, and definitely not Sam's.
”Or maybe you think you've already found it.”
Randy Dodd's big hand seized Chip's shoulder, spun him, and went into Chip's jacket front. The sc.r.a.pbook landed on the table alongside the knife Carolyn had used on Chip.
The hand came back clenched into a fist, and when it arrived all the lights went out.
DAWN WAS BREAKING WHEN JAKE AND BELLA FINALLY stumbled to the end of the gravel road and onto the pavement; the first pa.s.sing vehicle, a bread truck, gave them a ride.
The driver, an apple-cheeked young guy wearing a Yankees cap, wanted to take them directly to the cops, but they argued him out of it, and with difficulty persuaded him to let them out at the customs station between Maine and New Brunswick.
Cars were already lined up at the border crossing in the thin morning light as Jake stood at a pay phone just inside the building, talking to Bob Arnold.