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“Sue, where’s the key?”

“I think you ought to leave him right there until we get to the boat. No sense taking any chances—”

“At this rate, he’ll be seasick by the time we get there. Give me the key.” Dominique opens his shackle, then helps him onto the seat. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Nurse Ratched here has done a fine job.”

They arrive at the forty-eight-foot trawler. Sue cuts the engines, allowing the boat’s wake to push them in close.

Mick climbs aboard.

Sue hugs Dominique. “You be careful now.” She shoves the Magnum into the girl’s hand.

“Sue—”

“Hush. Don’t make a fuss. Blow his head off if he tries anything.”

Dominique slips the gun into the pocket of her windbreaker, then climbs on board, waving as the motorboat races away.

Now everything is quiet, the trawler bobbing in a black sea beneath a starlit sky.

Dominique looks at Mick, unable to see his eyes in the dark. “I guess we ought to get going, huh?”
Relax, you sound nervous as hell
.

“Dom, there’s something I need to say first.”

“Forget it. You can thank me by helping me find out what happened to Iz.”

“I will, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you. I know you still have doubts about me. You need to know that you can trust me. I know I’ve asked a lot, but I swear on my mother’s soul that I’d sooner hurt myself than allow any harm to come to you.”

“I believe you.”

“And I’m not crazy. I know I sound it at times, but I’m not.”

Dominique looks away. “I know. Mick, I really think we should get going, the police were watching the house all day. The keys should be under the passenger cushion in the pilothouse. Would you mind?”

Mick heads for the cabin. She waits until he is out of sight before removing the gun from her jacket pocket. She stares at the weapon, recalling Foletta’s words of warning.
I’m sure the resident will be quite charming, wanting to impress you
.

The engines sputter to life.

She stares at the weapon, hesitates, then tosses the gun overboard.

God, help me
…

Chapter 16

NOVEMBER 29, 2012
GULF OF MEXICO

5:14 A. M.

T
he forty-eight-foot trawler
Jolly Roger
continues its westward trek beneath a starry morning sky. Dominique is in the pilot’s chair, struggling to stay awake, her eyelids getting heavy. Exhausted, she lays her head back on the vinyl seat and again forces her attention on the paperback. After rereading the same passage a fourth time, she decides to allow her bloodshot eyes a moment’s reprieve.

Just a few seconds. Don’t fall asleep
…

The book drops from her hand, the noise startling her awake. She sucks in a cool breath of air and stares at the darkened passageway leading to the quarters below deck. Mick is somewhere inside, sleeping in the shadows. The thought both comforts and frightens her. Despite the fact that the boat is on autopilot, she has refused sleep. Alone in the pilothouse, her imagination has allowed her innermost fears to get the best of her.

This is ridiculous. He’s not Ted Bundy. He’d never hurt you
…

She notices the horizon turning gray at her back. Fear has convinced her that sleeping during the day is her best option. She decides to wake Mick at dawn.

“
Jolly Roger
, come in. Alpha-Zulu-three-nine-six, calling
Jolly Roger
, come in please—”

Dominique grabs the radio transmitter. “
Jolly Roger
, go ahead Alpha-Zulu.”

“How are you holding up, Doll?”

“Slow and steady. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

“The Feds shut SOSUS down. They claim it’s just a technical problem, but I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Damn. Why do you think—”

“Ahhhhh—Ahhhhhhh—” Mick’s screams send Dominique’s heart leaping from her chest. “Oh, Jesus, Ead, I’ll call you back—”

“Was that screaming?”

“It’s okay, I’ll call you right back.”

She clicks off the radio and runs down the shallow stairwell, flipping on light switches as she goes.

Mick is sitting up in the corner bunk like a frightened, confused animal, his black eyes wide and shimmering from the bare bulb swinging by his head.

“Mom?” The voice is throaty.
Terrified
.

“Mick, it’s okay—”

“Mom? Who is that? I can’t see you.”

“Mick, it’s Dominique.” She turns on two more lights, then sits on the edge of the bed. Mick is bare-chested, his taut muscles drenched in a cold sweat. She sees his hands shaking.

He looks into her eyes, still confused. “Dominique?”

“Yes. Are you all right?”

He stares at her face, then looks around the cabin. “I gotta get out of here—” He pushes past her and stumbles up the wooden stairs, heading out on deck.

Dominique follows quickly, fearing he may jump.

She finds him standing in the bow, the cold wind blowing in his face. Dominique grabs a wool blanket and wraps it around his bare shoulders. She sees tears in his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

For a long moment he just stares at the dark horizon. “No. No, I don’t think so. I used to think I was okay, now I think I’m pretty fucked up.”

“Can you tell me about your dream?”

“No. Not now.” He looks down at her. “Bet I scared the shit out of you.”

“It’s okay.”

“The worst thing about being in solitary … the scariest part … was waking up screaming, only to find myself all alone. You can’t imagine the emptiness.”

She guides him down to the fiberglass decking. He leans back against the pilothouse windshield and unfurls the blanket from his left shoulder, beckoning her to join him.

Dominique lies down beside him, laying her head on his cold chest. Mick pulls the blanket over her shoulders.

Within minutes, they are both fast asleep.

4:50 P.M.

Dominique removes two cans of peach iced tea from the galley’s refrigerator, rechecks their position on the GPS, then returns to the bow. The late-afternoon sun is still intense, its reflection off the fiberglass decking making her squint. She puts on her sunglasses and sits next to Mick.

“See anything?”

Mick lowers the binoculars. “Nothing yet. How far out are we?”

“About five miles.” She hands him the can of iced tea. “Mick, I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you remember back in the asylum when you asked me if I believed in evil. What did you mean by that?”

“I also asked you if you believe in God.”

“Are you asking me from a religious standpoint?”

Mick smiles. “Why is it psychiatrists can never answer a question without asking one?”

“I guess we like to be clear.”

“I just wanted to know if you believed in a higher power.”

“I believe someone watches over us, touching our souls on some higher plane of existence. I’m sure part of me believes that because I need to believe that, because it’s comforting. What do you think?”

Mick turns, gazing at the horizon. “I believe we possess a spiritual energy, which exists on a different dimension. I believe a higher power exists on that level, which we can only access when we die.”

“I don’t think I ever heard heaven described quite like that. What about evil?”

“Every Yin has its Yang.”

“Are you saying you believe in the Devil?”

“The Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, what’s in a name? You said you believed in God. Would you say that God’s presence in your life influences you to be a good person?”

“If I’m a good person, it’s because I chose to be a good person. I believe human beings have been given the freedom to choose.”

“And what influences those choices?”

“The usual suspects—family life, peer pressures, environment, life experiences. We all have certain predispositions, but in the end it’s our ability to understand what’s happening to us that allows our id to make decisions on a daily basis. If you want to segregate those decisions into good and evil—fine—but it’s still free choice.”

“Spoken like a true psychiatrist. But let me ask you something, Ms. Freud. What if this freedom to choose is not as free as we think? What if the world around us is exerting an influence on our behavior as a species that we can’t see or understand?”

“What do you mean?”

“Take the moon. As a psychiatrist, I’m sure you’re familiar with the moon’s effect on psychosis.”

“The effects of the moon are controversial. We can see the moon; therefore, its effect on the psyche could be self-induced.”

“Can you feel the Earth moving?”

“What?”

“The Earth. As we speak, it’s not only rotating, it’s soaring through space at a velocity of forty-eight miles per second. Can you feel it?”

“What’s your point?”

“There are things going on all around us that our senses can’t perceive, yet they still exist. What if these things are exerting an influence on our ability to reason, our ability to choose between right and wrong? You think you have free will, but what makes you really decide to do something? When I asked if you believed in evil, I was referring to evil as an unseen entity whose presence can blind our judgment.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you?”

“What influences a teenager to fire an Uzi into a crowded playground? Why does a desperate mother lock her young children in a car and push it into a lake? What causes a man to rape his stepchild, or … or to suffocate a loved one?”

She sees a tear form in the corner of his eye. “You think there’s an evil force that influences our behavior? Mick?”

“Sometimes … sometimes I think I can actually feel something.”

“What do you feel?”

“A presence. Sometimes I feel its icy fingers reaching out from a higher dimension. Whenever I get these feelings, terrible things seem to happen.”

“Mick, you were locked in solitary confinement for eleven years. It would be unusual if you didn’t hear voices—”

“Not voices, it’s more like a sixth sense.” He massages his eyes.

This trip may have been a big mistake. He needs help. He could be close to a nervous breakdown
. Dominique suddenly feels very isolated.

“You think I’m a psycho—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you’re thinking it.” He turns and looks at her. “The ancient Maya believed in good and evil as a physical presence. They believed that the great teacher, Kukulcan, was banished by an evil force, an evil god the Aztecs called Tezcatilpoca, the smoking mirror. It was said that Tezcatilpoca could reach into the souls of man, deceiving him, causing him to commit great atrocities.”

“Mick, that’s all Mayan folklore. My grandmother used to tell me the same stories.”

“They’re not just stories. When Kukulcan died, the Mayans began butchering tens of thousands of their own people. Men, women, and children were sacrificed in bloody rituals. Many were taken to the temple summit atop the Kukulcan pyramid, where they had their hearts cut out from their chests. Virgins were led down the ancient causeway to the sacred cenote where they had their throats slit before they were tossed into the sinkhole to die. The temples in Chichén Itza are decorated with the skulls of the dead. The Maya had lived in peace for a thousand years. Something must have influenced them suddenly to start butchering one another.”

“According to your father’s journal, the Maya were superstitious, believing the sacrifices would forestall the end of the world.”

“Yes, but there was another influence, the cult of Tezcatilpoca, that was also said to have influenced the atrocities.”

“Nothing you’ve told me so far proves the existence of evil. Man has been slaughtering his own kind since our ancestors dropped from the trees. The Spanish Inquisition butchered thousands, Hitler and the Nazis gassed and burned six million Jews. Violence erupts all the time in Africa. The Serbs slaughtered thousands in Kosovo—”

“Exactly my point. Man is weak, he allows his free will to be corrupted by outside influences. The evidence is everywhere.”

“What evidence?”

“The corruption is spreading to our most innocent members of society. Children are using their freedom of choice to commit atrocities, their conscience unable to grasp the difference between right and wrong, reality and fantasy. I watched a CNN story a few nights ago where a ten-year-old took his father’s automatic weapon to class and murdered two kids who were picking on him in school.” Mick stares out to sea, his eyes brimming again. “A ten-year-old child, Dominique.”

“It’s a sick world—”

“Exactly. Our world is sick. The fabric of society is riddled with a malevolent influence, a sort of cancer, and we’re looking for it in all the wrong places. Charles Baudelaire once said the devil’s deepest wile is to persuade us he doesn’t exist. Dominique, I can feel the influence gaining strength. I can feel it moving closer as the galactic portal opens and we near the winter solstice.”

“And what if this evil presence of yours doesn’t appear in three weeks? What are you going to do then?”