Part 24 (1/2)

Big mistake. All that dark nothingness ... for an instant, he didn't think he could do it. It's this stopping to think about things all the time that's got you messed up, he realized. h.e.l.l, the worst it can do is kill you.

And that, he was pretty sure, Randy Dodd had already done. Just a matter of time ... Thinking this, he struck another match on the side of Sam's emergency kit.

The match flared yellow and red. Chip touched it to the pine boughs in his coat. They burst into flames, singing his eyebrows, and almost at once his coat caught fire, too, the stink from its melting fibers and plastic zipper stinging his nose.

Reflexively he flung the flaming bundle away, saw the arc it made, flaring as it swung at the end of the rope.

Then, with a calm inward smile that astonished him more than anything else so far, he hurled himself over the edge. Falling and falling ...

From above him came a brief, harsh crackling sound, like a sudden intake of fiery breath. Next, the sky exploded, so that as he fell he was chasing his own dark, out-of-control shadow.

And after that, very suddenly so he didn't even have time to be afraid, he knew nothing more.

OUT ON THE WATER, CAROLYN RATHBONE WATCHED THE eastern sky fill with light. The few remaining clouds glowed sullen orange, as if the fire came from within them.

But even from where she lay, she could tell that it didn't. Tall flames licked the sky over there, as if some giant torch had been set burning.

All the other little boats on the water had nearly gone by, while the one she was prisoner on waited silently in darkness for them to pa.s.s, only a hundred yards or so distant.

Randy Dodd crouched with his knife to her throat. He'd shut down the engine and disabled the running lights.

”Don't make a sound,” he'd whispered, and she hadn't. So his ruse had worked, and as the fire over there rose higher she heard men's shouts, and the other boats' engines revving.

They were going away. The knife's pressure on her skin eased slightly. But, peeking up, she saw Randy Dodd's face contorted in a snarl of frustration.

He seized her hair, pulling her head up out of the blanket she'd been huddled in. Her breath came in shudders of fright that she couldn't control, as he scrutinized her face.

She thought he might kill her right then, but instead a new thought seemed to occur to him. As he considered it an eerie calm came over him, his expression smoothing and relaxing suddenly.

He flung her away from him, then cast another glance at the departing flotilla. They were headed toward the now-diminis.h.i.+ng firestorm on the other side of the water. When their running lights were little more than sparks afloat on it, he restarted the engine and they motored slowly toward the lights of Eastport, so distant a moment earlier but looming rapidly now.

Brighter and nearer, but at low tide under the wharves by the harbor, no light shone. Down there, the gloom was complete. He aimed the boat at the nearest one, confidently and with the air of a man who knew, now, just exactly where he was going.

And what he would do there.

She knew, too. That it was over, that like the other girls' final moments, her own had arrived. Or would very soon. But unlike the others, she didn't wonder about them. She knew. Evidence, trial testimony, photographs ... Oh, yes, Carolyn Rathbone, true-crime writer, knew only too well what was in store for her.

And she wasn't having any. Come with us, the girls in their graves crooned seductively, but she ignored them, scrambling up toward the boat's rail, full of sudden decision.

Up and onto it, where she stood for a glorious instant under a dark sky, looking out at the dark water. Startled, Randy Dodd lunged the length of the boat at her, but too late. She balanced on teetering tiptoe there, laughing and weeping.

Maybe I'm going to die now, she told the girls. Maybe I am. Or maybe not.

But that b.a.s.t.a.r.d ...he's not going to kill me.

The smell of the sea was so intoxicating, it made her feel she could fly. Spreading her arms, she did.

CHAPTER 10.

BY FIVE-THIRTY IN THE AFTERNOON, IT WAS PITCH DARK outside, and Jake had exhausted her list of immediately doable household repairs. A feeling of panic rose in her as she contemplated the was.h.i.+ng machine that no longer boiled the laundry no matter what temperature its control k.n.o.b was set on.

Ditto the leakless faucet in the upstairs bathroom, the old doork.n.o.bs that now turned without falling off in her hand, four non-creaky stair treads each cured by the application of a single well-placed grooved ring-nail, and a carpet whose dinginess had been eliminated by the simple method of throwing the d.a.m.ned thing out.

She searched her mind for yet another useful project, found none, and sat down in the telephone alcove in dismay. Just doing nothing while waiting for word about Sam was impossible, and so was calling someone-anyone-for updates.

Or just to talk. She'd already called everyone, and Ellie was the only one who hadn't made her feel that tearing her hair out was a viable option.

”I'll be here,” Ellie had said. ”Call any time you want. A dozen times, if you need to.”

Which Jake had needed to, but she hadn't done it, because how many times could you tell even your closest friend that you were going crazy with worry, and even crazier with the inability to do anything helpful in the search for your missing son?

”They'll find him,” said her father, coming in briefly to put a hand on her shoulder. ”They will. Every boat in the area is out there on the hunt for him. You just concentrate on that.”

”Right,” she said, putting her own hand up to grasp his in grat.i.tude. But the only thing she wanted was to be out searching, too, and she couldn't be. She would only be in the way.

”I'm going to take a ride down to the breakwater,” he told her. ”Just have a look around.”

She nodded and let him go, then wandered aimlessly around the house until she recalled that the damper flap on the furnace flue in the cellar needed replacing, and that she actually had the replacement part.

Which was why she was down there, hands coated with black, greasy soot, when the phone rang.

”Bella?” she called up the cellar steps. ”Can you get it? I'm all covered with-”

But Bella didn't reply, nor did her quick-step sound on the floor overhead. The telephone kept ringing.

”Bella!” she called again, hurrying toward the stairs. Still no answer.

Jake hustled up the cellar steps, grabbed a fistful of paper towels as she dashed through the empty kitchen, and tried fruitlessly to get the grime off her hands before picking up the receiver.

Apparently, furnace soot stuck much better to hands than it did to a wad of paper towels. The caller ID box said Undisclosed.

”Listen, you,” she began angrily, but then a voice broke in.

”Jake? Jake, this is Roger Dodd. Sam's here, I've found him, Randy must have-”

”What?” Relief coursed through her, as strong as a drug.

”He's here,” Roger repeated. ”I found him in the cellar, I don't know how-he's hurt, I called an ambulance and the county dispatcher's trying to find Bob Arnold right now.”

Sam. She leaned against the wall of the telephone alcove.

”Can you come down here? He's asking for you,” said Roger. ”He's conscious, but I don't know how long he can-”

Another voice came on. ”h.e.l.lo?” Faint but recognizable; her heart leapt. ”h.e.l.lo, can you hear me?”

”Sam,” she managed. He sounded awful. ”Yes, I can hear you fine. You hang in there, now, honey, I'm on my-”