Beachcomber (47 page)

As she had told Luke, it was over. She could get on with her life now. She was unemployed, but getting another job shouldn’t be that difficult. She was no longer part of a couple—no, she took that back. A smile touched her lips as she caught a glimpse of Luke’s reflection in the glass. She was part of a new couple. She thought. She hoped.

Luke had asked her if she thought they were falling in love.

Just considering the possibility made her feel warm and fuzzy all over.

A movement on the patio made her frown. She looked more closely, trying to see past the reflections in the glass. A pair of bright gold eyes turned her way, gleaming in the moonlight.

Marvin: in all the confusion, he’d managed to get out.

Sighing, Christy slid the door open and stepped outside.

The warm sea breeze caressed her face as she crept down the fence in pursuit of Marvin, who was clearly hunting again. It smelled of brine, and was heavy in a way that warned of rain. There would probably be a storm before morning.

“Marvin.” She could see him. He was at the edge of the dunes now, but she stopped at the end of the patio, suddenly nervous. Although she had left the door open
behind her and could faintly hear voices through it, the living room seemed very far away.

She heard a crunch, as of a footstep, and a little frisson of fear ran down her spine. Looking sharply in the direction from which the sound had come, she tensed as adrenaline flooded her system. Her fight or flight response, having been subjected to one heck of a good workout lately, was primed and ready.

“Is that you, Christy?” Mrs. Castellano came around the corner of the fence, hobbling on her cane.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Castellano,” Christy said, relaxing.

“Your mama called,” Mrs. Castellano said as she got closer. “She wonders why you haven’t been calling her.”

Christy was just opening her mouth to reply when Mrs. Castellano slid a hand around her arm. She looked down at that rough hand in surprise—and felt something hard thrust into her neck.

Pain stabbed into her body like a knife. With no more than a single gasp, she collapsed into darkness.

34

S
HE WAS BEING ROCKED,
gently rocked, sweetly rocked, not to sleep but to wakefulness. Stubbornly Christy clung to the retreating shadows, not wanting to relinquish blessed oblivion. On some subconscious level she knew that being aware was bad… .

Clang.
The sound of metal against metal was sharp enough to startle her eyes open. For a few merciful seconds her vision remained blurry, but then it cleared. What she saw turned her blood to ice. She was in a cell, pinned in by iron bars on three sides, lying on a wooden floor. Everything was moving, in the gentle rocking motion she remembered from her dream. A boat, she realized with a clawing sense of panic. She was on a boat. Locked in a cell on a boat.

“Can you hear me?” The urgent whisper came from her left. Christy glanced around, tried to sit up. Something clattered when she moved her leg. Looking down, she felt a thrill of horror as she saw the shackle around her ankle. It was attached to a chain that ran to a loop in the wall.

Oh my God. This had to be a nightmare. It was
supposed to be all over. She was supposed to be safe.

“Hey.” The whisper was sharper. The voice was rough, scratchy. “We don’t have much time. What’s your name?”

This time Christy’s gaze traveled far enough to find the occupant of the cell next to hers. The light was dim and shadowy, provided by a single fixture swaying from the ceiling. But she was able to discern matted dark hair not much longer than her own; a small form wrapped in a tattered blue blanket; a thin, pale face and dark, hopeless-looking eyes.

“Christy.” Even her voice sounded strange. Thin, otherworldly.

“I’m Terri. You have to help me figure out a way to get out of here. He’s going to kill us.”

A little electric shock of terror sliced through the fog that still shrouded Christy’s brain.

“Wh-who?”

“I don’t know his name. He’s a psychopath. He makes us call him
master.
”

“Us? Are there more?”

“Oh God, no.” Terri’s voice broke. “Liz—Liz got away. I don’t know what happened to her. She said she’d send help. But it’s been a long time… .”

Her voice trailed off into heavy breathing that wasn’t quite sobs.

A lightbulb went on in Christy’s brain. “Liz? Terri?” She took a deep breath, trying to clear the last of the cobwebs away, trying to think. “Elizabeth Smolski? Terri Miller?”

Terri clutched the bars separating their cells with a
clawlike hand. “Yes.
Yes.
How do you know our names?”

“People are looking for you. You’ve been reported missing. They think you’re the victim of a serial killer.” Horror rocketed through her. Her voice shook. “Oh my God, this guy’s the serial killer.”

“Do you have anything on you we could use to try to pick these locks? A bobby pin, maybe? Or a barrette?”

“No.” Christy’s mind raced to try to find a way out. “Liz got away. How did she do it?”

Terri sucked in a ragged breath. “She was missing some of the bones in her foot. From an accident. She could squeeze it real small. She kept working at it, and one day she was able to squeeze it out of the shackle. By then she was real thin, thin enough where she could slip between the bars. So she did. But she couldn’t get me out. And she was afraid to stay. It was night, and we were out on the water, and he had gone ashore. She leaped overboard.” Terri paused, and Christy could hear her breathing. “I know she didn’t make it. If she’d made it, she’d have sent help.”

Christy didn’t have the heart to tell her what had happened to Liz.

“That’s why you’re in that cell. He never used to put us next to each other. But he can’t figure out how Liz got out, and I keep acting like I don’t know. He thinks there’s some kind of escape hatch in that other cell.” She gave the merest hint of a rusty-sounding laugh.

“Have you tried screaming?” Christy asked urgently. “What happens when you scream?”

“It doesn’t do any good.” Terri sounded exhausted now. “Nobody comes.”

The boat swayed, and Christy heard a creak, as if a door had opened. The sounds were small, innocuous in and of themselves, and yet they were scaring her to death.

There was no mistaking the sounds of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Here he comes,” Terri warned in a terrified squeak, and scuttled away from the adjoining bars to huddle back against the wall.

Christy heard a faint rattling. Dread ricocheted through her as she realized that the sound was coming from Terri’s chain. Terri was so frightened she was shaking.

Christy’s heart lodged in her throat as the footsteps reached the bottom. She couldn’t see anything more of him than a shadow—a bulky, dark shadow. Heart pounding, chest heaving, she stared at that shadow as it turned toward her.

Then she saw who it was, and she was so stunned she could do nothing but stare. Her breathing suspended. Her mind went blank. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Hi, Christy,” Mrs. Castellano said in that weird high-pitched voice that had chased Christy through her nightmares. Then as Christy gaped at her she reached up and pulled off her wig.

A warm breath
of wind caressed his face, and Luke looked up from having his leg wrapped to discover the patio door open. He frowned, and glanced around the room. There were people here, there, and everywhere, but no sign of Christy.

He felt the sudden tension in his shoulders. Glancing around again, he spotted Angie talking to Gordie Castellano.

“Angie.” When she looked his way he beckoned. When she was near he asked, “Have you seen Christy?”

Angie shook her head, and glanced around, too. “She was right here.” Her gaze riveted on the open patio door, and she frowned. “Did she go outside?”

“I don’t know. The door’s open.” Impatiently he pulled his leg away from the paramedic, who was making a procedure out of securing the gauze with tape.

Angie was already at the door. “I’ll just check.”

“Wait for me.” Luke didn’t know why, but he was starting to get a bad feeling about this. A real bad feeling. Following Angie, he stepped out through the door and glanced around the partially lit patio and into the darkness beyond. No Christy. Nothing except Marvin, crouched under a chair.

“Come here, Marvin.” Angie scooped him up. Luke wasted a second to marvel at the attraction that nasty-tempered animal held for the sisters Petrino, then dismissed the cat from his mind.

“What are you two doing out here?” Maxine stepped out onto the patio.

“Have you seen Christy?” Luke and Angie asked in practically the same breath.

“No.” Maxine looked from one to the other of them. “Why? Have you lost her?”

“It’s not funny, Maxine,” Angie said in a sharp voice.

“Sorry.” Maxine stepped back inside the door and
bellowed to the crowd in general. “Has anybody here seen Christy?”

“She was out on the patio,” Aaron Steinberg volunteered. “Talking to Mrs. Castellano.”

“Oh my God,”
Christy whispered, as Mrs. Castellano peeled latex wrinkles from each cheek. Then she straightened, squaring her shoulders, and all of a sudden she seemed much taller and not at all frail.

Mrs. Castellano—whoever this person was—smiled at her, a slow smile of anticipation. The boat rocked, the lantern swung, and light hit her full in the face.

“Uncle Sally,” Christy gasped. It had been years—eighteen years—but his face suddenly appeared in her mind’s eye as clearly as if she had seen it yesterday.

The smile broadened. “I thought you would remember,” he said with satisfaction. “In fact, I knew you would. You always were a smart little girl.”

“But … I thought you were dead—it was a hit—I always thought of it as payback for what you did to my father.” Christy’s voice started shaking on the last words.

“What makes you think I did anything to your father?”

Christy felt as if an iron band was constricting her chest. It was hard to breathe, to talk. All she could do was stare at this nightmare out of her past—and remember.

“I know you did it. I know you did it. I always knew. I came out of the house and he was lying there on the driveway with a gun beside him. When I went to him, I
picked it up. It was still warm, and I could smell it—it had just been fired. He’d just come out of the house; he’d just been talking to me.
There was no reason.
I heard a car start up in the street. I looked up, and I saw you in the driver’s seat. I saw you as clearly as I’m seeing you now.”

“Yeah,” Uncle Sally said. “And I saw you.”

“My mother was afraid. She kept telling me I was mistaken. She kept telling me I saw nothing.”

“Your mother’s a smart woman.”

“They killed you. Why didn’t you die? You should have died.” Christy’s voice grew high-pitched with hysteria. “I thought you died.”

“See, I got a thing about that,” Uncle Sally said, reaching for the lock on her cell. Christy saw that he had a key in his hand, and terror ricocheted along her nerve endings. “I don’t like the whole idea of dying. Now, killing, that’s a different story. I like killing. I’m especially going to like killing
you.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Gordie
Castellano whispered, but Luke heard, and his head whipped around so fast his vision blurred. One look at Castellano’s paling face told Luke that something was badly awry.

“You know something,” he said, moving toward Castellano. His throbbing leg didn’t even slow him down. Castellano looked at him, and Luke saw fear and confusion in his eyes. Every instinct he possessed went on red alert, and he snarled, looming over Castellano, backing him up against the wall.
“Tell me.”

Castellano sucked in a ragged breath.

“Christy’s in danger. Whatever you know,
tell me.”

“I kept telling him she wasn’t a threat. What would a little girl remember, I kept asking him. But he was obsessed. Just nuts with it. He thought she saw him. When he hit Joe Petrino. He was just sure of it. He kept following her around, ever since she got here. I told him, you’re gonna make her remember you. But he said, she already does.”

“Who?” Luke demanded.
“Who?”

“Aunt Rosa,” he said. “Only she’s not Aunt Rosa. She—he’s my cousin Sally, Salvatore Castellano. He was kind of nuts, you know, got carried away with things, killing people he was only supposed to rough up, that sort of thing. A real loose cannon. So they hit him, only he didn’t die but he had to hide. Aunt Rosa hid him in her basement for fifteen years. Every once in a while he’d come out at night, but that’s all. He was going nuts from the confinement. He wanted to see the sun. So when Aunt Rosa died, he got a guy to help him look like her, and he moved down here. Like she retired to the beach, see?”

“Where would he take her?”

“Christ, I don’t know. Wait. His boat. He’s got a houseboat called the
Lorelei.
See, he gets tired of being Aunt Rosa sometimes, so he goes down to this boat and he can be a guy again. He even got a little business going with the marina where the boat is, a boat launching service.” Castellano’s voice thickened. “I know I shouldn’t have helped him, but he’s
family,
for God’s sake. And I didn’t think he was doing any harm.”