Claire Gulliver #02 - Washington Weirdos (25 page)

Marcus walked to the other end of the room and talked quietly into his cell phone. Wiley gave Guy instructions about printing copies of the two pictures of Neil for their use. He sent Nick back to their offices to gather information on Neil’s travel activities, especially during May and June.

Then they sat down to discuss how to proceed.

“Where is Neil now?” Marcus asked Wiley.

“Christ!” Jack looked from one to the other. “Charlie said Claire wanted me to know that she and David were going out on a boat with Neil.”

“They’re with Neil?” Wiley’s voice faltered.

“Maybe not. Wait, let me find out. He pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Charlie answered his cell phone on the first ring, but didn’t know if the boat had returned as he was at the vet’s with MiMi.

Jack glanced at his watch. It had been hours since Charlie had called him. Certainly they should have been back by this time.

He poked in the numbers for the Lickmans and paced while waiting for someone to answer.

“Hello, hello? Is Mrs. Kramer available? This is Jack Rallins. I have to speak to her immediately.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Well, find her!”

“Mrs. Kramer, Jack Rallins here. Mrs. Kramer, did David, Neil and Claire return yet? Can you check?”

“She’s going to check but she doesn’t think they’re back,” he said to the anxious faces in front of him.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, if they come in will you call me immediately? You have my cell phone number? Yes. Yes. Right.”

“They’re not back?” Wiley asked, his anxiety showing in his stance.

“Mrs. Kramer said JoJo wanted to go, but Claire sent her back to the house. JoJo said that they were only going to be gone for a half hour, because Claire told them I was coming to talk to them about something. That worries me – why did Claire lie? And JoJo is a little put out with Claire. Claire said her grandmother didn’t want her to go, but it turns out the grandmother didn’t say that at all.”

Marcus stood up. “Okay. I’m concerned. Does anyone know the name of the boat or its radio call letters?”

Jack and Wiley shook their heads. Wiley called the Lickmans once more to see if anyone knew what the boat name was.

Marcus called the Coast Guard to find out if there were any problems on the Bay and to alert them they had a situation developing.

The little boat skimmed over the water, heading steadily toward shore. Claire was calmer now, but every time they went up over a little swell and the boat was high enough to see Neil’s motor-yacht she measured the distance between them.

“David, can this boat go any faster?” She struggled to keep her voice calm even though her heart threatened to burst out of her ribcage.

“Not much faster. Why?”

She looked directly at him. “Well, unless I’m crazy, Neil’s coming after us.”

David twisted around to look. “Unfortunately, you’re not crazy.”

“I guess the good news is that I didn’t kill him. I should have listened to you. You wanted to tie him up. But I panicked.”

“Stop it. We were in a hurry! We thought we were heading for safety. For that matter, I should have taken the key out of the ignition and tossed it. That would have slowed him down. Of course, I didn’t think of it, then.”

They looked at each other glumly.

“What’s going to happen? We won’t make it to shore in time, will we?”

He shook his head. “Not a chance. But with a little luck we might make it to shallow water.” He pointed to some markers in the water a long ways off. “We could get through there and he couldn’t.” He turned and looked at the approaching boat. “Do you swim well?”

She nodded.

“Well, if you end up in the water and he tries to run you over dive as deep as you can and stay down as long as you can so you can clear the propeller blades. But if he’s determined and keeps coming back, I don’t think we’ll have much of a chance to make it.”

His eyes told her it wouldn’t be
if,
it would certainly be
when
. “He has to kill us, Claire. You know that, don’t you?” His tone was gentle, but certain.

She nodded. No words were needed.

“Well, look in that little locker under your seat and see what kind of survival gear we have. This is a good time to make use of anything we have.”

Claire pulled out the box and opened it. The inflatable vests looked like the ones used on the airlines, but if they needed to swim underwater to avoid the propellers they didn’t need the buoyancy of the vests. She put them back and, rummaging around, she held up each item for David’s inspection.

“There. Give me that.”

She handed him the flare gun.

“Let’s just see if anyone is close enough to help. If nothing else, it’ll give Neil a little more to worry about.” He pointed the gun into the air and fired the flare.

They both watched as it burned brightly in an arc, fading far too fast to be any comfort.

“Do you think anyone saw it?” She scanned the horizon hoping to see some other boats appear.

David shrugged looking into the vast stretch of water behind them. “That’s the Intracoastal Waterway over there, and it’s pretty busy. But I don’t know if a big ship, like a liner or a cargo ship would come to look for us, even if they did notice the flare. I guess the best we could hope for would be that someone would radio to the Coast Guard.”

“Is there anything else we can do?” Claire asked hopefully.

He shook his head. “Pray. He’s going to try to run over us and he’s got the speed and power to do it. But, this little baby has maneuverability.” He patted the inflatable side as if it was a horse’s neck. “I think I can dodge him a few times and hope that gives us time to reach the shallow water. It’s like playing Russian roulette.

“Now, when he gets closer, I’m going to run in front of him as fast as we can go. Then when he’s almost on top of us, I’ll turn sharply either left or right and head around him. You hold on tight to those handles so you don’t get thrown out when I turn. It will take him longer to turn and then he’ll try again. Hopefully, we can avoid him again. Do you understand?”

Claire understood all too well.

“And if God favors us, maybe another boat will happen along to upset his little game.”

They both looked around at the empty sea, but there was still no other boat in sight.

“How will he explain this?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll find a way. He’s good at it. And remember, no one suspects him.”

David shook his head. His anger showed. “Damn it, Claire. He may get away with it.”

They both looked at the boat which seemed to be approaching even faster.

Their next glimpse of the boat was close enough for them to see Neil at the wheel. He was in control.

Claire felt numb. It just didn’t seem right that her life was ending like this. She wasn’t ready!

Then at David’s signal she grabbed the handles on either side of her and hung on. Her eyes were glued on the big yacht, which now loomed over them and just when she felt a scream emerging spontaneously from her throat, David cut the little boat sharply to the left and scuttled out of the way of the larger craft. But now the little boat bounced and heaved in the wake, almost overturning before righting itself to bob sedately on the swells, the motor idling while David waited to see which way Neil would turn back.

Claire released her grip on the handles, flexing her fingers trying to get the blood circulating again. She trembled. She hadn’t believed they would avoid the collision, but they had. Thank God for David’s skill.

They sat there silently, watching Neil slow down and go into a big turn.

“He’s enjoying this. Did you see his face when he went by?”

David shook his head. “I didn’t have time.”

“He was grinning. I wished I had a hand free and I would have used his gun.”

“Not much chance of doing any harm that way.

“Oh, oh, he’s getting ready to do it again. He’ll be watching for it this time. I’ll do my best, but Claire, remember what I said about diving deep and swimming as far as you can if you go in the water.”

The boat was pointing in their direction again and was picking up speed.

The blast was so fierce it actually shoved their boat away. Claire grabbed the handles instinctively and held on as the wave created by the explosion tossed them into the air. She ducked her head as bits of debris rained down on them.

Then it was quiet.

She stirred, brushing some debris off her lap. Then she looked at David. His face appeared frozen in shock. There was blood on his head, dripping down the side of his face and black smudges where burnt pieces had apparently hit him. She imagined she looked as bad as he did.

“David? David, are you all right?”

He nodded, still dazed.

Claire peered around them at the pieces of the boat which floated in the water and at the charred unrecognizable bits which had landed in their boat. Nearer to where the yacht exploded some larger pieces were burning in the fuel on the surface of the water. Otherwise there was no evidence of the motor-yacht, or of Neil.

Neither of them spoke. Claire’s ears were ringing and she wasn’t sure she could hear, even if David said something.

She had no idea how long they sat there watching the pieces burn and sink. The floating pieces started drifting away and finally she roused herself to check their distance to shore.

“There’s nothing we can do here, is there?” Her voice echoed in her ears. Then wondering if David had even heard her, she repeated it louder, almost a shout. That got his attention.

He shook his head and turned the little boat toward the shore once more.

Later he said, “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Did you know Neil was involved with the bomb on the plane in London?”

She shook her head.

“So how did you know the boat was going to explode?” He watched her carefully, as if her face could tell him what he wanted to know.

She shook her head. “I didn’t know really. It’s just that when we were on the boat I suddenly remembered what he said about blowing up the boat. Call it intuition. Call it having a good Guardian Angel. I just felt crawly and I knew we had to get off that boat immediately.

“That’s what happened on the plane. And that time in San Francisco when I woke up in the warehouse. I don’t try to analyze it. When my hair stands on end, and my stomach drops down to my feet, I just follow my instinct.”

She stared back at the spot where the boat had been. “I didn’t even guess about Neil. I didn’t like him for some reason. And I thought I had seen him somewhere, but I’m still not sure where that was. He made me uneasy. Yet everyone thought so highly of him, I just thought it was me. Then Amy told me you were going out with him and for some reason I was alarmed. I didn’t stop to figure it out. I tried to get you to wait by lying about Jack coming to talk to us.” She saw David’s surprise but just continued. “When it was clear you were going out anyway, I told JoJo that MiMi wanted her at the house so she wouldn’t come. Then I came. As if I could make everything okay...”

“Thank you for that. And for the presence of mind to bean him with that bottle...” He gave a faint smile, “You sure pack a wallop.”

“It’s the cartons of books I heave around at the store. It builds lots of muscle.”

They both fell silent. There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.

Jack hung up his cell phone. His boss was going to notify the English authorities of the new development in this case. The wheels were turning. Solving these cases often seemed to be slow work, but he knew they wouldn’t stop until they had the guilty persons apprehended.

Wiley came back in the room after visiting with Neil’s secretary, reporting, “Neil is expected in this afternoon. She said she talked to him this morning and he told her he was checking out a new boat and was going out on the Bay with David for a test cruise. She knew the name of the yacht broker, so Guy is contacting him now. Hopefully, we will get the description of the yacht as well as the radio call letters.”

“Good work. My office is in contact with the Coast Guard. They are standing by with a couple of search choppers if we need them.”

“I feel so useless.” Wiley burst out. “We don’t really know if anything is wrong, but my gut tells me to do something.”

The other two men looked at him sympathetically; they too were sure that the length of time the boat had been gone was an ominous sign.

“Well, one thing I’d better do is call MiMi.” His face showed how reluctant he was to make the call.

Jack and Marcus discretely went next door to grab a cup of coffee, giving Wiley privacy to talk to MiMi. When they returned, Wiley was mopping his brow with a big white hanky while listening intently to Guy.

“Okay, Guy’s got the information. Neil’s been talking to this man about yachts for the past year. Last week he told him he might want to try it out. Sunday, he called him at home and asked if he could take it for a test run on Tuesday. Of course, the salesman was thrilled. He’s sure he’s got this sale.”