Part 4 (1/2)

In fact, Susan was a few years older than I was, even if she didn't look it. I said, ”We can get politically correct later. Right now, we need to figure out how we're going to get out of here if that guy on the deck comes inside.”

”The stairs are the only way down, but we can go up.”

A lightbulb went off. ”The crow's nest?”

”Yep. But there's no way down from there either, unless...”

”Can we...” A shotgun blast shattered the quiet. Gla.s.s exploded downstairs, and footsteps crunched across broken windows.

Susan gasped and yanked my arm by the elbow. I turned to look, and she was hauling a.s.s. I caught her as she hooked a left and charged up a short flight of steps that dead-ended into the ceiling. She twisted some little k.n.o.b I couldn't even see and pushed open a hatch. Stars filled a three-by-four foot hole in the roof. Susan shot through, and I followed. Up on the catwalk, I quietly fitted the hatch back into place.

We crouched on narrow strips of teak that made the banistered catwalk look like a miniaturized deck. We had a s.p.a.ce about six feet wide and twenty feet long and nowhere to hide. Susan breathed hard. She said, ”Do you think we'll be able to stay here?”

I looked around. ”Do we have a choice?”

”There's a palm over there at the back corner. The roof's steep, but if we could figure out how to slide down at an angle somehow, we could get hold of it and climb down to the driveway.”

”What?” She started to explain again, and I stopped her. ”Listen.” The house was quiet. ”What the h.e.l.l? Susan, come on. Stay low. Get over here. We better sit on the hatch.”

”They might shoot through it.”

”And they might just try it and move on. It's better than leaving it open so they can pop through and shoot at us.”

As Susan started to edge over, she glanced through the banisters toward the sh.o.r.eline. She said, ”Look,” and pointed down at the beach. We saw a figure in dark clothes kneeling on the sand.

And he saw us. A black shape moved in his hands, and a sharp rap sounded a split second before something small and hard and deadly hit the copper roof below us.

I said, ”Let's do it. Stay low, and go through the banisters. Don't go over them.” Susan wiggled through a repeating diamond shape in the banister and began inching down the side of the steep metal roof opposite the beach. Easing my head to the far edge of the catwalk, I looked for the gunman. He was motioning to someone in the house. He was motioning at the roof. s.h.i.+t. Belly crawling to the other side, I found Susan flat on her back, b.u.t.t against the roof with both feet wedged in the rain gutter. She was eight feet away from the palm fronds and inching her way there not nearly fast enough.

Just in case, I tried to fit my shoulders through the banister. It wasn't even close. Taking a deep breath, I came off my knees at a full run and hand sprinted over the railing. I expected to hear, or maybe even feel, another gunshot. The guy on the beach just stood there. He probably couldn't believe his eyes. For all the world, it had to look like I was leaping into a full gainer over the driveway.

It felt that way too. I hit the copper roof on my right hip and bare shoulder blade and started sliding like a downed skier on a patch of ice. I managed to get my b.u.t.t under me and my head up in time to nail the gutter with my heels. The jolt jammed my knees and ankles, knocked a section of gutter loose, and flipped me forward into a face full of palm tree. It hurt like h.e.l.l. I hurt everywhere, but I managed to grab fists full of spiky fronds and hold on.

The world scrambled for a second. When it fell back into place, I looked around for Susan. She had fallen sideways trying to grab me before I flipped off the roof, and she was almost gone. Her feet were on the roof's edge. Her right hand had a death grip on the piece of gutter I had slammed loose, and her left hand was reaching out for me. Clenching a thick frond with my right fist, I bent my knees, swung to the left using the frond as a pivot, and grabbed Susan's hand. Her grip on the gutter came loose, and I swung her into the tree trunk with a painful thud. She held on.

”Go, Susan. They know we're back here.”

She started down the trunk and, with me s.h.i.+nnying behind her, had made it to within six feet of the ground when three gunshots snapped the night air. Susan dropped.

Joey yelled, ”Move. They're coming. Move!”

Susan scrambled to her feet and ran. I dropped ten feet, executed an unplanned and painful backward somersault, and sprinted down the driveway. Up ahead, Susan veered left into underbrush and I followed her. Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed my wrist and spun me into the ground. As I landed in sea gra.s.s, Joey said, ”Stay down.” I did. Joey sat crouched in a shooter's stance with his .45 automatic leveled at the house. Susan lay on the ground next to him.

”Susan? Susan, did you get hit?”

Joey said, ”n.o.body got hita”none of us anyhow. That was me shooting. One of 'em came around the corner while you two were monkeying around that tree, so I fired three rounds. Think I hit him.” Susan reached over and squeezed my hand to let me know she was okay. Joey said, ”Here they come. We better go.”

Tearing through sea gra.s.s, c.o.c.kleburs, wild azaleas, yucca plants, and a thousand species of lowland brier bushes, Joey ran full out ahead of us for what seemed like a couple hundred yards. Next to a wooden walkway that stretched from the road to the beach so normal people could avoid the brush and thorns we had just run through, Joey stopped, motioned with his head and said, ”See that big, funny-looking bush?”

I looked, and it was kind of funny looking. ”Yeah.”

”Carli's over there. I'll be back. If I'm not, stay away from the house and figure out some way to get Susan and the girl out of here.”

I started to say something, to tell him I'd come with him. But he was gone.

Susan walked toward Joey's bush. I followed. We found Carli sitting in a fetal position on the dark side of the bush away from the moonlight. She didn't cry. She didn't speak. She hugged her knees and rocked and looked impossibly small.

Susan sat on the sand and put an arm around Carli's shoulders. I found some shadow nearby where a big, funny-looking bush wasn't blocking half the world from view. I peered into the dark and watched for nameless, faceless men who had come to murder two women in a house on the beach.

Minutes crept by. In the distance, sirens swirled through the night air. Two shots popped almost quaintly farther down the coastline. More time pa.s.sed. The sirens grew louder as Joey emerged out of the underbrush. I met him at his bush next to Susan and Carli.

I asked, ”What happened? I heard a couple more shots.”

Joey said, ”That was me. When I got back to the house, they were loading one of 'em into a pontoon boat on the sand. So I did hit him. Anyway, when he was in, one stayed with him and the other one jumped out and looked like he might come back for more. I took a couple of shots, and he jumped behind the boat and pulled it in the water. They took off.”

Susan said, ”Did you shoot to scare them off?”

”h.e.l.l no. I shot to kill the sonofab.i.t.c.h. He was just too far away for me to hit him with a pistol. They were getting ready to haul a.s.s, anyhow. One of 'em was shot, and you could hear the cops coming.”

I asked, ”Are the police there now?”

”Probably are. I didn't stay around to find out.” He wedged his .45 in the back of his waistband, looked at me, and said, ”So, Counselor. That's what I do. Now do what you do. What's the plan?”

Susan and Carli were silent. The teenager was still now, but she still hugged her knees tightly against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Susan stroked her hair.

I said, ”You got a license for that gun in Florida?”

Joey said, ”Nope. Licensed in Alabama. Not here.”

”Okay. Susan and I are going back. You look after Carli. Take her wherever you need to to keep out of sight, but,” I pointed at the street end of the wooden walkway, ”be on the path next to the road in, let's see, it's about two-twenty now, be there at three-thirty.”

”What are you gonna say?”

”Don't worry about it. You and Carli were never there. See you at three-thirty. Susan? You ready?”

Susan hugged Carli and whispered something I couldn't hear.

On the way back, I briefed Susan, telling her to stay as close as possible to the facts with only the changes we specifically discussed. Twenty yards from the house, I led her out onto the pavement so we could approach along the driveway. Jumping out of the bushes at a bunch of nervous, heavily armed deputies seemed like a bad idea.

As we neared her drive, a deputy stationed to keep people out said, ”What the h.e.l.l?”

Susan's now filthy T-s.h.i.+rt was ripped across her stomach where she had snagged it on the palm. Cuts and scratches covered her arms, and dirt smudged her face. I was worse, having scrambled down a palm tree, rolled around the driveway, and torn through Br'er Rabbit's playground without a s.h.i.+rt. A grapefruit-sized strawberry covered my left nipple. From the waist up, I was pretty much one big stinging sc.r.a.pe.

I said, ”I'm Tom McInnes, and this is Susan Fitzsimmons. This is her house.” The deputy seemed to think about that for a second before he pulled out a nickel-plated revolver with a six-inch barrel and pointed it at us.

He said,” ”Walk up to the house,” and that's what we did.