Night Of The Blackbird (39 page)

“It would have been great, but now we need a new plan.”

“It was that O'Hara bastard,” Michael—for she didn't know how else to think of him—said.

“We should have fixed him to begin with.”

“He was to take the fall.”

“Fucker wasn't who he said he was, either. Obviously he's on the inside somehow. How the hell else did he get that kind of dossier on you?”

“Damned if I know. Hurry up—we need to get this boat out of here, drown the girl and sink it.”

“Why didn't you just strangle her? Seems like you were getting pretty adept at that.”

“Get the boat moving. I'm going to make sure she's still out.”

Moira heard footsteps. Despite the pounding in her head, she leaped up. Patrick kept a loaded gun in the safe in the master cabin. She wasn't a great shot, but point-blank, she couldn't miss.

She made it to the master cabin just as the hatch opened. She heard Michael swearing. Terror filled her, but she slammed the door and locked it. Her fingers were frozen and shaking as she jerked open the latticed closet door and started twirling the numbers on the safe.

They clicked home.

“Moira, come out. I'm still trying to make this painless.”

The safe opened just as the flimsy door to the cabin burst inward.

She reached into the safe for the gun. It was gone.

She stared into the empty safe, then into the eyes of the man she had known as Michael McLean. He watched her dispassionately from the doorway.

“Your brother is as easy as you are, Moira,” he said. “I guess he never mentioned that he and his buddy Andrew McGahey brought me down to the boat on one of those mornings when you were being the family girl. Good old Patrick, expecting no evil. He never knew I spotted the safe. And a safe like that…well, it's no problem to a man such as meself.”

There was another weapon in the cabin. Maybe one he didn't know about.

She made a dive across the small room, flinging open the top drawer of the bedside table. Her fingers curled around the knife.

She knelt on the bed, the hilt of the knife in both hands. “Come near me and I'll kill you, I swear it.”

He smiled slowly. “Moira Kelly, you're no killer, and you know it. Give me the knife.”

She raised it as he came near, then slashed at him when he leaped at her, cutting his arm severely. He didn't seem to notice the pain. He caught the knife with his right hand, her throat with his left. The knife was wrested from her. He pressed her downward on the bed, straddling her, his fingers around her throat in a death grip.

“It's going to be a while before we reach the open sea. You know, I wasn't lying to you, Moira. I really fell in love with you. Enjoyed you wholeheartedly. Why don't you try to make it up to me?”

She was nearly choking.

“Can't answer? Sorry.”

He eased his hold.

She still couldn't move, but she looked into his eyes as she spoke. “When I'm gone, they'll search for me. They'll find you.”

“Who is ever going to think that I've taken you out on your brother's boat?” he asked, smiling. “Oh, babe, I'm sorry that it has to end this way. Want to draw it out a little longer? Entertain me? Live? Hope that some miracle will occur, and you won't have to die?”

He reached out to touch her face.

A sound like a growl suddenly erupted from the doorway.

“Touch her, you pile of shit, and I'll shoot you in the balls so you can bleed to death in agony!”

Michael was startled enough to roll halfway off Moira.

They both froze for a minute. There was Danny, hair tousled as always, standing in the doorway. He had a gun in his hand. Not a big rifle with a scope, but a small weapon that, in the tiny room, looked just as lethal.

Danny. The man she had condemned…

“Move, Moira,” he commanded.

She tried to flee, but Michael still had the knife. She felt the point in her back when she would have leaped up. She froze

“Trust me, I learned a trick or two in my youth,” Danny said softly. “I can shoot you before you can do more than scratch her. But I think she's been hurt enough, don't you?”

Danny took aim. Michael eased away with the knife. “You fucking traitor,” he told Danny. “You bastard. You should have been the one killing Brolin. God knows, you stupid bastard, you should be at the forefront of the fight.”

“Oh, I believe in the fight. A fight of words and negotiation and persistence. Not a fight of killing children and innocents.”

Footsteps. She heard footsteps coming up behind Danny.

He heard them, too, and turned, but Moira cried out, “Danny, it's all right. He's a cop.”

Danny hesitated at her words.

Kyle's gun exploded. The bullet seemed to burst directly into Danny chest. Into his heart.

M
oira screamed. A shriek of horror that went beyond fear for her own life. She raced toward Danny, who had fallen facedown on the floor, but Michael caught her around the waist before she could crouch to see if he was still alive.

“You shouldn't have shot him,” Michael told Kyle.

Caught in Michael's arm, Moira was beyond hysterical. She clawed at his arm, kicked, spat, tears blinding her eyes. “You!” she raged at Kyle. “A cop!”

“I never said I was a cop.”

“FBI—”

“I never said I was anything, Miss Kelly. I let you believe what you wanted. I did spend an entire day sitting in front of the police station, waiting to catch you. Ah, Miss Kelly, you were so mistrustful of those you knew. You helped us right along.”

She kicked out at him, the man who had killed Danny. She caught him right in the belly, and he doubled over, stunned and groaning in agony.

She lashed out again, kicking backward. She managed to catch Michael's shin, but though he might have been in pain, he didn't release his hold on her. Instead he slammed her against the wall, and her head began to spin again.

“Want to hear a good Irish expression, Miss Kelly?” she heard Kyle Browne grate the words out. “The back of my hand to the front of your face.”

The blow was stunning. She melted against the cabin wall like a water balloon thrown against concrete. Stars burst in her vision.

“Jesus, don't leave bruises all over her,” Michael swore.

“It needs to look convincing, like he beat her up, and then she shot him. Now let's move. We don't have forever.”

She felt Michael dragging her up from the floor. He was strong, but she was deadweight. She saw Danny's body stretched out on the floor. She wanted to cry out in sheer agony once again, yet her lips refused to open.

Danny had fallen on top of his gun.

But the knife had wound up just inches from her hand….

As Michael fumbled with her weight, she shifted and fell again. Intentionally, this time.

On top of the knife.

She managed to curl her fingers around it. She let him lift her then, prodding her before him. The hallway was narrow. As he shoved her along, Kyle Browne followed, but he was caught in the passageway behind Michael. Halfway along, before reaching the area where the hallway broadened into the salon area, Moira decided to make her move. Fury and pain aided and abetted her effort. She twisted and struck, using all her strength to force the blade through Michael's flesh and muscle.

Shock stopped him as much as the injury. He stared at Moira, who looked at him with tears of loathing and defiance. His face had drained of color.

“Move it, Michael,” Kyle commanded.

Michael had no breath to reply.

Moira took that moment to run. She raced down the hallway and up the three steps that led topside. She leaped out on deck and slammed down the hatch, locking it.

A bullet tore through the hatch just seconds after she moved away.

The hatch would not stay locked long.

Another bullet ripped through it….

And another.

She ran to the stern, where the dinghy was tied. They'd left the dock, and the tiny boat was her only way back. She dropped to her knees and struggled against the rocking waves to untie the ropes that held the small rowboat in place. Perhaps, she thought, she should just jump in the water.

She wouldn't last long, she knew. This time of year, the ocean was lethally cold. She would have only a few minutes' grace if she threw herself into its inky depths.

Just as she untied the dinghy, she was grasped from behind, dragged to the deck and thrown flat.

She looked up. Michael was standing over her. He didn't have a gun or a knife, but that didn't stop him. He reached for her, his hands winding around her throat.

She fought him, her will to survive strong enough to drive her to struggle even when all hope was lost. She slammed against his wrists, bucked against him, clawed his arms. She couldn't loosen his grasp against her throat. Her breath was going….

Somewhere, distantly, she heard an explosion. She thought at first that it was the sound of dying.

Then, miraculously, Michael was gone and she could breathe.

She gasped, choked, tried to inhale, tried to see past the patches of darkness that had formed before her eyes. At first she heard only the water lapping against the hull of the boat. Then she became dimly aware of the sounds of a struggle. She sat up, then blinked furiously. A man was down, sprawled over the hatch, his legs trailing along the deck. Further to the fore, near the helm, two men were struggling.

She stumbled forward. Kyle Browne was the man lying over the hatch. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing. He was dead.

She carefully tried to sidle around him, but the waves rocked the boat, throwing her against the dead man. She steadied herself and reached the helm just in time to see Danny and Michael go over the side of the boat together. A pool of blood stretched along the deck and over the hull.

Danny had been shot. In the chest. It was amazing that he had even gotten up. He was bleeding to death. And he was in the water….

“Danny.” She meant to cry out his name, but she merely croaked.

She rushed to the side and leaned over. A hand rose from the water, and she reached for it, desperate with fear.

A head rose to join the hand. Her heart sank. Michael. His face no longer seemed human, it was knotted into such a snarl of hatred and malice.

He jerked on her hand, and the motion sent her tumbling into the water.

It was cold, so cold it stole the breath she had just regained. She was barely aware at first that her hand had been jerked free by the impetus of her fall. For long moments she seemed to speed downward into the freezing stygian depths. She realized that she would die if she didn't force herself to act. She kicked hard and began to surface. She broke through the waves, but the boat seemed impossibly far away. Her muscles didn't want to work; her arms didn't want to move. Her teeth chattered hard, and it seemed ridiculously difficult to breathe. She forced herself to head for the boat. She reached it, but couldn't reach high enough to grasp the rail and pull herself up.

Suddenly she was propelled upward. Her midriff met the rail, and she crawled over, fell, gasped for breath. Danny! Danny had to be alive. Shaking violently, she crawled over to look into the water again. He was rising, using long strokes against the icy waves to reach the boat. He made it to the hull, and she reached out with both hands to pull him to safety.

“Danny.” It was a whisper as she saw the golden glint of his eyes. As she spoke, he was suddenly jerked under again.

“No!” It was a scream, but nearly silent. Michael must still be there, still alive, still attacking Danny. She rushed to the dead man and shoved him aside searching for his gun. She found it and half walked, half crawled to the side where Danny had last surfaced. She desperately searched the dark water, holding the gun in both hands.

A ripple…

A hand…and then a head appeared. Someone was swimming toward her again. Fingers curled over the hull.

“Moira, help me up.”

Danny!

She set the gun down and reached for him, using all her strength. Somehow she succeeded in pulling him high enough, and they fell together onto the bloody decking.

They lay there for several seconds, both shivering violently, gasping for breath. Then Moira jerked into motion, going for the gun again.

He rose, stretching out his arm, gently taking the gun from her.

“He might come after you again.”

“No.”

“But—”

“He won't be coming back up to the surface again, Moira.”

She let him have the gun, but she kept staring at the water, barely aware of how frozen she was until she felt Danny behind her again, covering her shoulders with a blanket. Still she stared at the waves lapping against the boat. So black.

He pulled her against his chest. “Moira, he won't be coming back up,” he repeated softly.

She heard a whirring sound; it was a helicopter above them. Danny began to wave wildly, and they heard a male voice over a loudspeaker.

“The Coast Guard is on its way. The Coast Guard is on its way.”

The helicopter remained above them as Danny held her. Knowing it was over, Moira began to shake more violently.

“You're alive,” she said through chattering teeth. “But he…he shot you in the chest. Point-blank. I saw him….”

“I'd been getting a little wary lately. Bulletproof vest.”

She turned to look at him, barely aware anymore that she felt like a Popsicle. “Are you a cop? And you didn't tell me—”

“No, Moira, I'm not a cop.”

“Then what are you?”

“An Irishman,” he said with a rueful smile. He opened his mouth to offer a further explanation, then didn't. He took her into his arms suddenly, kissed her lips with a warming fervor, then held her against him. She could hear the motor of the Coast Guard vessel as it came near.

From then on, the rest of the night became a blur.