Death by Marriage (27 page)

“Let’s call it a stand-off,” I said. “You leave and Letty promises not to press charges.”

“Press charges?” Innocence shown from Marshall Johnson like rosy pink clouds around the setting sun. “Against me? But, my dear, I haven’t done a thing except keep my dear Letty company. She loves me, do you not, my sweet lady?”

I almost gagged. We all stared at Letty, waiting . . . I pulled a tissue out of my purse and handed it to her. She mopped her wrinkled face, sniffed, and finally replied, “I loved you, Marshall, I truly did. You were everything a lonely old woman could ask for. But I’ve had doubts for a while now—in my heart I knew these girls wouldn’t shred my happiness without good reason. And then, when I heard about what happened to that poor girl last night and the news said they were looking for Eric . . . well, I realized these dear girls must be right.”

Letty glanced from Crystal to me, her tear-filled eyes begging us to understand. “I told Marshall I needed more time . . . and he showed his true colors. Oh-so-smooth, but hard as nails. He’s held me here for hours, waiting for something, I don’t know what.” She broke her gush of words with a hiccuping sob. After wiping away more tears, she added, “I’m
so
sorry you girls got yourselves mixed up in this, and all because you cared. So very sorry.”

Tears overcame Letty again. I could only squeeze her hand and wonder if Scott would get here before whatever Marshall was waiting for went down.
Stall, keeping talking
. I turned to Marshall, who had produced a shiny black gun. No surprise. “What have you done with Royal Willie?”

“A nice meaty bone with animal trank. He’s sleeping it off in the bedroom.”

Marshall’s cellphone rang. “Hell!” he burst out, as he answered the phone.. “Where’ve you been? I thought it was you a few minutes ago, and it turns out I buzzed in the costume lady and the fat fortune teller. “No,” he responded, “can’t leave them here. We’ll have to take them with us. Shut up and listen!
No. More. Bodies
. No collateral damage. That’s how we keep going. Turn serial killer and every cop in the country will be looking for us.”

Bad news and good news. Evidently we were going wherever Marshall and Letty were going. And we might make it out alive, if whoever was on the other end of that call—probably Eric—didn’t get his way.

As for Letty . . . not much doubt that Marshall was going to find a way to marry her. That had been the whole point of this five-month con. Letty Van Ryn’s millions. But Eric fouled things up by getting involved with Alexis Lippincott. Now the Johnsons were on the run, forcing Letty into a quickie marriage the only way to salvage their scam.

“We’re going on a trip, ladies,” Marshall said, motioning us toward the door with his gun.

No way to make a run for it without Marshall shooting at least one of us, so not an option. I opened the door and stepped out, leaving the others to follow—Crystal supporting Letty with an arm around her shoulders and murmuring soothing words, Marshall and his shiny black gun bringing up the rear.

When we reached the ground floor, Marshall ordered us to the back door. Outside, everything still looked deserted. Where were the cops? Didn’t they patrol the perimeter or something? The irony of wanting the police to see us, when we’d tried so hard to avoid them not a twenty minutes earlier, didn’t escape me. Unfortunately, they were still invisible, evidently sublimely certain they had everything under control.

I paused on the walkway leading to the dock, looking around. Was Scott hiding out there somewhere? Marshall growled, I moved forward.

There were new lights at the end of the dock, a large cruiser, probably the one I’d seen as Crystal and I approached Bella Vista. The one I’d thought of no consequence. Marshall shooed us forward. Well, duh, the bad guys had conceived the same “attack the postern gate” idea Crystal and I had. Except they’d gone us one better. They had a boat.

Scott, where are you? If you’re still putting
Sea Tow
to bed for the night, I’m going to throttle you.

If I lived that long.

My thoughts cut off abruptly as ready hands helped us aboard—the Mutt and Jeff characters I’d seen at Antiques Etcetera, although the tall one was more like the Hulk than the skinny Mutt from the old comic strips. I blinked when we entered the cabin. And blinked again. Looming large was a man who looked a lot like Eric Johnson, only younger and tougher. Or maybe that impression was due to the AK-47 cradled in his arms. He not only appeared to know how to use it, but like he would have no qualms about doing so. Was he the third man Chad had seen at the cabin in the woods?

Eric Johnson was sprawled on the built-in beige vinyl couch, his arm around . . . Vanessa Kellerman? I gaped, every ounce of sophistication stripped from me.
Vanessa and Eric
? My wild flights of imagination were
right
? These two knew each other? A big yes. And from the looks of it, they knew each other well.

Smoke drifted across their faces from the cigarette of an older woman seated next to the cozy pair. A woman who had been attractive in some dim past, but whose features had turned stone-cold hard. A woman who made Madame LaFarge, placidly knitting as guillotined heads rolled, look like Mother Teresa. Something about her was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Perhaps it was the family resemblance, for I was nearly certain she was the mother of Eric and AK-47. Which likely made Marshall her husband.

Oops
. That wasn’t the end of my Wow moment. I also knew the man at the wheel. Jeb Brannigan and I stared at each other, his face gone almost as pale as the cruiser’s outer hull. “No way,” he protested, shifting his gaze to Vanessa. “I said I’d pilot, but you didn’t say nothing about grabbing somebody I’ve known my whole damn life.” Shaking his head, Jeb lifted his hands from the control panel. Marshall shifted his gun in Jeb’s direction, the AK-47 went from cradle to lethal in one second flat. Jeb’s blue eyes widened, his hands flipped up, palms out. Grimly, he studied Marshall, as if trying to decide if he really meant it. Evidently, the answer was yes. Jeb shrugged. “Okay, okay, but it’s going to cost you double. Maybe triple,” he added as he turned back toward the control console.

“Leave it, Johnny,” the older woman ordered. “He got the message.” The Eric look-a-like tilted the rifle down. Slowly.

We’d stumbled into a nest of vipers—Letty, Crystal, and I. Mother, father, two sons, and two goons. And Vanessa? Was she Eric’s sister? Lover? Wife?

Oh. My. God
. It finally came to me: we were on board
Rainbow’s End
, Martin’s dreamboat. And my wildest speculations were all coming together. Martin’s murder, Alexis’s murder, the burglaries, Letty’s lethal marriage—

My stunned brain finally made the connection. The older woman was Virginia Mills, Basil Janecek’s caretaker. Before me were the perpetrators of
all
the recent deaths and disasters. The full circle of evil.

“Take their cellphones and put ’em in the stateroom,” the older woman ordered. “We’ll figure what to do with them later. Let’s get out of here.”

Interesting. Evidently this clan of “travelers” was a matriarchy. For all Marshall’s smooth confidence, it was the woman known as Virginia Mills who was giving the orders. His wife? I was nearly certain of it.

Mutt and Jeff herded us down a couple of steps into a
cabin
that spread across the stern of the boat. Two built-in bunks, two small port holes and a couple of skinny, built-in closets near the door . . . and the vibration of the twin diesels powering up. I heard the snick of the latch and then we were alone, the three of us, wondering how—when we’d had enough warnings and clues to fill a bottomless pit—we’d managed to get ourselves into this fix.

Ropes thudded onto the deck.
Rainbow’s End
pulled away from the dock. I knelt on the bunk on the bay side and tried to see where we were going. Probably str
aight out the jetties into the G
ulf. With the GPS turned off, we’d be nothing but a dot on countless square miles of water. Turning into the Intracoastal Waterway, however, would be like entering a trap, every drawbridge tender a spotter on our progress. Even worse for the “travelers,” if the drawbridges stayed down,
Rainbow’s End
and her flying bridge were going nowhere. A delicious prospect, except the Gulf of Mexico was a scant mile away and, ignoring the No Wake zone, we were picking up speed,.

Closer, ever closer to the jetties. I examined the porthole more carefully. Surely it was designed to open for ventilation on a hot day. There were always people on the jetties—it was a favorite spot for night fishing. If I could shout loud enough to be heard over the sound of the engines . . . Maybe I could wave something. I looked around the cabin and saw nothing movable but the dark, heavy bedspreads and Crystal and Letty, who were seated side by side on the opposite bunk. I eyed Crystal’s caftan—what a signal that would make! With a soft sigh, I settled for my long-sleeved white pullover. But first, I had to get the porthole open. If there was a light switch in this cabin I hadn’t found it yet. My fingers fumbled their way around the circular window and finally found a latch. There! Letty gasped as the room flooded with the brisk air of a January night on the water.

I stripped off my sweater, got a good grip on it, and waited. The porthole was too small for my head to poke through, but my sense of timing said we’d reach the jetties any moment now.

A great roar. I crashed to the floor, sprawling over Crystal and Letty as both engines went into emergency reverse, gears grinding, water spraying so widely droplets flew in the open porthole.
What the . . .
? Leaving Letty to Crystal, I scrambled back up to the bunk and peered out.
Rainbow’s End
was moving forward again, turning north into the Intracoastal. As she turned, I saw the jetties as I’d never seen them before—a string of small craft were lined up bow to stern across the entrance. A blockade. God bless Scott. I thrust my sweater out the porthole and waved it in a wild, erratic arc. Before the jetties disappeared behind us, I caught a glimpse of the local police boat, blue lights flashing, breaking ranks to give chase.

And then the massive gray rocks of the jetties were behind us, and something else big and gray loomed up almost close enough to touch. Chad’s houseboat. Mixed emotions flooded through me. Just when I needed him most, the drunken burn-out was probably passed out on the couch. And then I saw a bulky shadow on the sundeck. Chad stretched out on a lounge chair? I waved my sweater anyway.
See me, see me. SOS. Hey, Chad
! Not that the cops didn’t know we were in trouble, but still . . . I guess I couldn’t quite give up on the guy. And, besides, any port in a storm, right?

The shadow never moved, but I caught a glimpse of a sneakered foot. Passed out on the sundeck instead of the couch. Great.

My hand hit the edge of the porthole hard as Mutt the Hulk yanked me off the bed. No comfy Crystal cushion this time. I hit the deck hard, banging into a few other solid bits of wood on the way down. The Hulk stood over me, looking his fill. Unfortunately, he appeared more pleased—okay, more salacious—than angry. After a glance at my right hand—empty—I did a fast survey of the floor between the beds and the bunk I’d been kneeling on. Back up to the porthole, where no telltale bit of white now fluttered.

“It’s gone,” Crystal whispered. The Hulk leered.

“Get lost,” I told him, while telling myself my lacy bra covered as much as a bikini top. But I don’t think the Hulk saw it that way.

“Later, babe,” he promised. “Maybe Betty’ll give you to me instead of dropping you overboard.”

Overboard. That’s not what Marshall said. But my guess was that Virginia Mills’s real name was Betty, and she was boss, Marshall not much more than a convenient bit of charm.

“You’ll never get past the drawbridge,” I told him. You’re trapped, bridge in front, cops behind.”

The leer wavered. He backed out, locking the door behind him.

“Fucking A, it’s full up!” Eric’s shout easily penetrated the door between the main cabin and the stateroom.
Rainbow’s End
shot ahead at flank
speed, spraying water and a roiling wake that slapped both sides of the narrow waterway as we approached Needle Key’s south bridge. If all else failed, the eco-terrorists would get him for this.

“It’s coming down, will we make it?” A high-pitched screech from Vanessa.

Silence. I pictured the people in the main cabin holding their breaths as the bridge did its ponderous crawl down to flat and locked. If it had been on the way up when the cops signaled “close,” it would have had to complete its cycle, allowing whatever boat had signaled “open” to pass through before going into its closing routine. The distance from the jetty to the drawbridge was short, and
Rainbow’s End
was tearing through the water so fast I expected it to rise up on plane like a hovercraft any moment.

Back at the porthole, I caught a glimpse of the old Coast Guard dock. We were there, the bridge dead ahead. I couldn’t see . . . and then I did. The great steel girders were just above us, at maybe a forty degree angle. Too close, too close. I heard the bridge gears grinding. Lower still.
Crunch. Clang.
The flying bridge buckled but didn’t give way. At least that’s how I interpreted the rending noises followed by shouts of jubilation coming from the main cabin.