Fine! She had no problem giving him exactly what he wanted.
Ellen was a crack shot, but shooting from a speeding vehicle over a bumpy road wasn’t exactly target practice at the range. On her third pull of the trigger, though, her brain made all the necessary adjustments. She was locked in.
But then she watched as the Mystery Man pulled the Beretta from behind his leg.
Chapter 99
DEVOUX WHIPPED HIS ARM FORWARD, locking the elbow before firing just one shot.
Bull’s-eye!
With a thunderous pop the right front tire exploded, shreds of rubber spinning wildly round and round as the little car weaved out of control.
The rest was pure physics. He could tell she was trying to hit the brakes. It didn’t matter. You’re way too late for that, sweetheart. It’s all over—you just don’t realize it yet.
The two left tires lifted off the ground. Then it was all four. Her car launched into the air, flipped once, twice, and then landed with a crushing thud upside down, the roof buckling into a zigzag of twisted metal.
The engine hissed as flames shot out from the grille, the smoke black and thick. As the dust settled, Devoux stood and watched with his gun still drawn, waiting for any sign of life.
What he saw was her hand, streaked with blood, reaching out from the driver’s side. She was clenching the dirt; she was trying to pull herself out.
Scrappy little thing, isn’t she?
Though not for much longer. Devoux began to walk forward, then to jog. It was time to finish her off, DEA agent or not.
It had to be done. She was a loose end, a fly in the ointment, and a risk he could ill afford to take. As long as she was alive, she’d be looking for the goods on Peter Carlyle, and she just might find something.
That’s when he stopped short.
Coming fast up the dirt road was another car. He was about to have company, an eyewitness, maybe even plural.
But there was still time. He fixed his eyes back on Agent Ellen Pierce, about to run over and shoot her dead.
Shit.
Her other hand was reaching out of the overturned car. This one was holding her gun. Slowly, clumsily, she was taking aim at him again.
Time to go. Devoux retreated to his Mercedes and fishtailed as he sped off. Looking in the rearview mirror, he could see a shaky and bloodied Agent Ellen Pierce stumbling to her feet, staring down the road at him.
Kill ya later, sweetheart.
Chapter 100
LIEUTENANT ANDREW TATEM hightailed it into the emergency room of Princess Margaret Hospital in Nassau and was immediately escorted to a nearby examining room. That was one of the fringe benefits of being a man in uniform and an officer. Most people dropped everything in order to help you. It was a good thing.
The message relayed to him from the headquarters of the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association, BASRA, was only that Ellen Pierce was at the hospital. He didn’t know why. He didn’t even know whether she’d been hurt or it had been someone else.
That little mystery got solved the moment he saw her lying in the bed. It was her all right, and she was clearly a patient. Cuts, bruises, lots of bandages from head to toe.
“Christ, what happened?” he asked.
“Car trouble,” she said, her sense of humor still intact. “Flat tire, actually.”
Ellen described her showdown with the pistol-packing Mystery Man from Billy Rosa’s bar. She had no doubt that Carlyle had arranged to meet him there. As to why exactly, she wasn’t sure, but she had her suspicions, none of them good.
So did Tatem.
“We can’t let him fly out of here in the morning,” he said. “We’ve got to ground him.”
“Believe me, I’ve been lying here trying to figure out how we can. Legally, that is.”
Tatem rolled his eyes. “You almost got killed today. At least to buy us some time, I think your office would understand if we concocted something to keep Carlyle on the island. Don’t you agree?”
Ellen shot him a sheepish look.
“What’s wrong?” asked Tatem. “What am I missing here?”
She glanced over his shoulder, making sure they were alone. The nurse in the hallway seemed safely out of earshot. Besides, her vote didn’t count.
“You see, technically I’m not here,” said Ellen.
“I don’t follow.”
“Let’s just say that my boss back in New York didn’t exactly share my concerns about Peter Carlyle. I’m kind of . . . on vacation down here.”
Tatem rolled his eyes again, her confession sinking in. “Let me get this straight—you contacted me on your own? You’re flying solo on this, with no clearance?”
“Bingo.”
“I hate bingo. Christ, that’s why you wanted me to play airport courier for you. You couldn’t be seen with Peter Carlyle.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll make it up to you. I don’t know how yet, but I will.”
“I’ll make sure you do,” he said, allowing a smile. Above all else, Agent Ellen Pierce certainly showed initiative, and guts. He liked that. She was trouble, sure, but his kind of trouble. Never mind that she was also very attractive—even all banged up in a hospital bed.
“Here’s the problem,” she said. “If Carlyle somehow has it in for his family, the only way to ground him would be to lock him up. To do that, we need evidence.”
“Which we don’t have, of course. Do we?”
“Not yet.” She thought for a second. “Wait, what about that life jacket your guys found, the burned one? How fast can we have it tested for explosives?”
“That depends. You plan on bringing anyone up to speed? The feds, perhaps?”
Ellen shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” said Tatem. “The Coast Guard isn’t exactly an investigative unit, although I do know a pretty decent lab guy in Miami. Figure eighteen hours— twenty-four.”
“Good enough, I guess.”
“And in the meantime?” he asked. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Simple,” she said. “We pray your Coast Guard boys find the Dunne family before that bastard Carlyle does.”
Chapter 101
PETER WAITED IN HIS HOTEL ROOM the next morning until he heard the five magic words. At 9:15 his phone rang. “You have a FedEx package,” said the front desk. Now he had everything he needed.
Securing a private plane had been no problem. In fact, he had his pick of aircraft. Under the guise of being Good Samaritans, about a dozen aviation leasing outfits were willing to offer—for free, no less—the use of one of their planes.
Of course, their real motivation just might be the gobs of free publicity they would attract thanks to this ultra-hyped media story.
Everyone’s an opportunist, right? Nothing new about that. Greed is always at the core of human nature.
By 9:45 Peter was out on the tarmac at Pindling International, performing the requisite visual inspection of his loaner plane. It was what they called an amphibian, able to take off and land on both the ground and the water.
Slowly he circled the aircraft. The Coast Guard had probably begun its new search at the crack of dawn, but Peter didn’t care about its head start. Good luck, fellas. You’ll need it.
While its complex computer models were busy trying to reconcile a bogus EPIRB signal, a found life jacket, and the migrating habits of giant bluefin tuna, Peter’s search area would be based on the one thing the Coast Guard didn’t have: the actual coordinates of where The Family Dunne went down.
Peter climbed aboard the plane and strapped himself in. Even in the private confines of the cockpit he still felt the need to glance left and right, like a kid about to cheat on his math test, before going over his flight plan one last time, reviewing exactly how he should commit the murders. The preflight checklist followed. All instruments and gauges were operational. Everything responded. No glitches. At least, it seemed that way.
Peter wasn’t a hundred percent focused on his instru
ment panel and he knew it. He also couldn’t help it. His mind was elsewhere. It was impossible not to dwell on Katherine and the brats, namely on what he had in store for them. His postflight checklist.
1. Kill them all, whoever had survived the explosion.
2. Bury the bodies.
3. Pretend to search the area for a few more days.
4. Tearfully give up, undoubtedly before tons of news cameras from around the globe.
The voice of the tower crackled through Peter’s headset. “Mr. Carlyle, you are cleared for takeoff on runway A-three. On a personal note, here’s hoping you find your family.”
Peter thanked the voice from the tower, grinning behind his sunglasses.
Be careful what you wish for, pal.
Chapter 102
THE DAY WAS A PILOT’S DREAM, all right. Nearly perfect visibility. With barely a cloud in the sky, Peter could see everything from his perch at three thousand feet.
Everything, that is, except Katherine and her obnoxious brat pack. Plus their uncle, of course.
He’d covered a half-dozen islands along the southernmost tip of the Bahamas that qualified as uninhabited. Sure enough, they were still uninhabited.
There remained two ripe prospects in his mind, and he had the coordinates for both.
A half hour later, that was down to one.
Peter wasn’t given to self-doubt, and that wasn’t changing as he steered the plane due east and throttled up. It was Devoux’s work he was beginning to question.
With his charts and graphs, the guy had certainly made the search seem like a slam dunk. Of course, that expression had some interesting history with the CIA, didn’t it?
Peter still had an unfair advantage over the Coast Guard. Its search wouldn’t expand this far south until the following day—at the earliest. Still, what good was having the extra time if he came up empty?
Peter increased the throttle and the plane responded seamlessly. He very much liked the way it handled. Even when pushed, she still felt smooth. Very smooth. With the engines purring, he gave the throttle one more nudge. Why not get there a little faster?
Out of nowhere, the plane answered with a loud sputter. That’s why.
Jolting up in his seat, Peter looked out his side window to see the left propeller slowing down. Then it stopped.
Immediately the wings seesawed, the plane lurching hard left. Peter threw his weight against the control stick, struggling to steer it back to the right.
Again he looked out the window—both sides now— checking the ailerons on the rear edge of the wings. They looked intact, but he was still losing roll control.
Peter’s gut shot up into his throat as the small plane began to spiral downward. Once, twice, he tried to restart the engine, but with no luck. The nose of the plane plunged farther and farther south. Within seconds there would be nothing he could do.
Except crash into the sea.
Was this God intervening? Was there some kind of cosmic justice after all? Nah!
Peter shook his head, clenching his jaw. With one last heave he pulled back on the control stick, trying to bring the plane out of its spin. If he could level the plane, he’d have another shot at restarting the engine. That’s it, baby, straighten out! You can do it.
The left engine stirred, then stammered, the propeller clicking, clicking, clicking . . .
Then catching.
Sweet music to his ears, the engine fired up, kicking out a burst of air and sending the plane hurling forward out of its spin. Only when it leveled out a few hundred feet over the water did Peter remember to breathe.
“Unfuckingbelievable!” he shouted.
But that was only the half of it. Peter stared out over the nose of the plane, quickly lifting his sunglasses. The island! Twelve o’clock, straight ahead! Were those animals?
No, they were people.
And not sunbathers, either—not tourists enjoying a secluded day at the beach.
Back on went the sunglasses. He throttled down, the plane swooping lower and lower. He wanted to get closer, close enough to know for sure that what he was seeing was for real.
That it was the Dunnes.
Chapter 103
I’M NOT THE FIRST TO SPOT IT, Mark is. He yells so loud that I think I’m back in the ER and there’s a big problem.
But the second I turn to see him down by the water, his arm outstretched and pointing feverishly into the sky, I know he’s screaming for joy.
The next second we all are.
Carrie and Ernie, sprawled in the shade by the top of the beach, jump up like two jack-in-the-boxes. They practically trip over each other as they sprint to join their brother.
No one says a word about lighting the fires. We don’t have to!
That’s how close this low-flying plane is. It’s coming straight toward us, no mistake. There’s no way it can’t see us.
Still, just to be sure, Carrie runs over to our SOS spelled out with rocks. I actually laugh as she elaborately motions to it with her hands. She looks like one of those silly prize girls on The Price Is Right. Wow, this is really happening! We’re about to be rescued!
Yesterday we thought our ship had come in. Today, for real, our plane has!
It’s only a few hundred yards away and dipping lower, as if to say hello, signaling that it’s seen us.
That’s when Mark screams out again. “Look!” he says. “It’s got pontoons!”
He’s right. I was so happy to see the plane, it never occurred to me where it might land.
No problem at all.
It’s got a runway as big as the ocean.
With a giant whoosh! the plane sails right overhead, its wings angling into a steep turn. I catch a glimpse of the pilot—or at least the silhouette of the pilot. It looks like a man, or maybe I’m just assuming that. I really can’t tell for sure. But if it is, he’s going to get the biggest hug of his life, whoever he is.
“It’s coming around to land!” yells Mark. “He’s coming! He’s coming!”
We watch the plane circle back at the far end of the beach. The wings level out no more than a couple of hundred feet above the surface. In all my years of sailing, I’ve never actually seen a water landing.
Talk about a memorable first time.
The plane approaches, its twin propellers like two perfect circles against the sky. Any second now it will begin to dip toward the surf, those pontoons gently easing down.
But that expected moment never comes.
Right before our eyes—so close, so very, very close—the plane continues straight past us, the roar of its engines drowning out our screams.
“Noooooo!”
Stunned, we watch as it flies off into the distance. It doesn’t turn around, it doesn’t come back. Instead it disappears over the horizon.
Gone.
How could what just happened here possibly have happened? Who was that maniac who just buzzed us?
Chapter 104
CHRIST, IT’S DARK . . .
Not that Peter was complaining. This was exactly what he had been waiting for, the cover of night. The darker, the better.
Walking through the thick and tangled brush, he kept his flashlight low, shining it ahead only enough to see where each step was about to land. Anything more would’ve been too much. It would make him into a walking lighthouse.
He was an uninvited guest, after all—the ultimate surprise visitor—and the whole key to his plan was keeping it that way until the very last moment.
Now he just had to find his lovely family, once and for all, and finish them off.
The plane was anchored on the other side of the island. Earlier he’d cut the engines and performed a near-silent “dead drop” a few miles from shore. Hey, kids, don’t try that at home—trust me on it.
For one thing, there are no do-overs.
It took hours for the current to drag the plane close enough to the island, but hours he had. If he’d really thought about it, he would’ve included a few magaz
ines in the FedEx box.
Other than that, though, he’d packed everything he needed. One fold-up shovel. The flashlight. Some double-braided rope. Of course, the most important was his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. And yes, he was ready to use it. The murders wouldn’t be a problem for him.
Peter pressed on. The night air was warm and still, peppered only with the high-pitched chirping of some kind of bird. Short of that, the only distinct sound was the pounding of his heart. The adrenaline was now gushing through his veins. Maybe the murders would be a small problem.
Finally, through a clearing, he saw it. Distant but definitely there. It was a small orange glow.
Their campfire.
The edge of the beach was only a few yards away. Reaching it, he immediately kicked off his docksiders and wet his feet, made sure he was balanced in his stance.
Each step he took now was silenced by the squishy give of the sand. He was quiet as a mouse.
As he got closer, his eyes began to distinguish among the shapes near the fire. Bodies. All horizontal. Fast, fast asleep. No one seemed to be stirring. He could even hear some snoring.
One big happy family.
But who was who? Peter wondered.
Did it even matter?
For some perverse reason, it did. Yes, the first shot would be reserved for Katherine. He had nothing against her, really. There was no need for her to see the kids slaughtered.
Peter took one more step forward, his eyes squinting down to narrow slits.
Until . . .
The light from the fire shifted ever so slightly, illuminating Katherine’s face for only a split second.
There you are, sweetie pie!
With a stiff arm he swiftly raised his gun in front of him, the barrel aimed squarely at Katherine’s head, right between her eyes. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
At least, that’s how it might have looked.
“But trust me, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was there to save my family, not to kill them.”
Part Six
Trust No One
Chapter 105