SHADOW OVER CEDAR KEY (23 page)

Someone had once spruced up the hull with a decorative blue band, but now the entire rig looked unkempt and in need of painting. The place where Brandy had seen the figure was in the lower section. She crouched among waxy white myrtle berries as a massive man in a tee shirt emerged from the wheel house and stumbled out on deck. His stomach bulged over his belt. Heavy black hair blew around his low forehead and across his wide nose and mouth. In one ham-fist he carried a roll of duct tape. He looked toward the clouds, shook his head, and zigzagged to the front window. The boat wasn’t yet rolling enough, Brandy decided, to account for his gait. Maybe he was drinking. Up went a length of gray tape. Of course, she thought, he’s getting ready for the storm. He had two anchors overboard already, fore and aft, and a thick rope sagged from the trunk of a pond cypress.

Brandy watched him tape the three windows on the outside, then lurch back through the door. Before it closed, he took something out of his pocket, held it against the front window glass beneath the outside tape, and plastered tape over it on the inside. She waited while he slouched down behind the helm and lifted a bottle to his mouth. He did not strike her as the sort who would welcome a reporter.

Being careful not to step on any twigs, she worked her way through the underbrush to the boat’s stern, waded out, tossed the line over the metal railing, and secured it with a bowline. Then holding fast, she pulled herself up onto the deck. There she dropped the line, lifted the Nikon out of the bag, hung the strap around her neck, and switched it on.

Now for the hard part. The woman might not be Cara, but surely taking a picture of the oaf’s girlfriend wouldn’t be a crime. She stepped around the dinghy and inched down the catwalk toward the window. Even before she reached it, she heard a sound like sobbing. Finally, by putting her nose against the pane, she could see into the room. Below the window stood a cheap looking cabinet and across from it, bunk beds. On the lower one lay a slim form. As Brandy watched, the woman stirred, raised one arm, then sat up, shivering, her head bent forward. Brandy recognized the cascade of long, dark hair. She raised the camera. Best to get proof, signal to Cara, and come back for help.

She had clicked the camera and was tapping gently on the glass, when to her right, she heard labored breathing. In nightmarish slow motion she turned. The bulky figure was lumbering down the walkway toward her from the bow. To run or to brazen it out? For a nano-sec-ond she hesitated, and while she was deciding to make a break for the line, the man lunged forward, one huge hand grabbed her, an arm closed around her neck. She could not make a sound, could only smell the liquor and the sweat.

“What the hell you think you doing?”

He dragged her, struggling, backward to the front deck and into the wheel house, where he relaxed the arm choking her so that she could breathe, could squeak out her pitiful explanation. “A reporter. Writing a story about life on the river. Looking for people to photograph and interview.” She glanced wildly around, saw the wheel and console, a table with a bottle of tequila and another of vodka, a shabby couch, a galley with a butane stove, a small refrigerator, dish cabinets, a fire extinguisher bracketed to the wall.

“How stupid you think I am, sister?” Twisting her head against his shoulder and the ropy muscles of his neck, he yanked the bag from her arm. She heard the Nikon hit the floor. “Shit, a reporter wouldn’t be sneaking up on a boat, wouldn’t be out when a freakin’ hurricane’s coming in!”

He jerked her by the arm into the tiny galley, and with his free hand pulled back a panel above a counter, picked up a hand held transmitter, and pushed a few buttons. “Moose. Yeah. Guess what I got? Some bitch, nosing around the boat. Says she’s a reporter.”

After a minute, he grinned. “Reckon she’s the same one. Yeah, I can. Gonna be rough tonight. Coming in around nine o’clock. Yeah, yeah. Taped the windows. Gonna move the boat out a little, gotta be able to swing away from the island. Don’t wanna get beached.” A moody silence followed while his arm tightened again around her neck. “Yeah,” he said at last. “When the freakin’ storm’s over. We’ll do it then.”

His voice fell, took on a wheedling tone. “I told you I got it. Reckon it’s worth a lot, ole’ buddy. I just need my fair share. Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk tomorrow.” Her fingers stretched, touched the red cylinder.

“Hey!” He dropped the transmitter, grabbed both her arms, and whipped them behind her. His voice took on its familiar rasp. “No funny business, sister. And can the bullshit. We know who you are. Looks like ole’ Moose got two guests tonight.” He dragged her beyond the galley toward a wooden door with one small glass panel. “You go in here with your buddy.”

Holding her arms immobile with one hand, he retrieved a key from a peg on the wall and unlocked the pocket door. Then he shoved her into a darkened passageway, tossed the unzipped plastic bag after her, and slammed the door. The key turned in the lock.

When Brandy was next fully aware, she had sprawled at the foot of two steps, her face pressed against a damp carpet rank with mildew, with Cara kneeling beside her. “Oh, God, Brandy. What have I gotten you into?”

Brandy raised herself on her elbows, her head splitting. “We’re in this together.” Her voice shook and she paused a second. “First, tell me how
you
got here.”

Cara helped her up and they sat side by side on the bunk. Wiping her eyes with her skirt, Cara blurted the story of the blue teddy bear, the shock of finding it in Marcia’s closet. She had meant to leave for good, to find a place in Gainesville. She knew that’s what everyone would think she’d done. She knew now that she was wrong, that she never meant, deep down, to hurt Marcia.

After the drug store, she remembered the chloroform, and coming to, sick. Then she was hoisted into the swamp buggy, still with the man called Moose. They jostled along a two-track road that ended at the river. He had hauled her aboard yesterday afternoon, and later he’d brought her canned soup. So far he’d stayed on the other side of the door. “But he’s drinking, Brandy, saying nasty things. I’m scared to death of him!” Cara’s voice sank to a whisper. Her dark eyes widened. “And there’s going to be a hurricane. I don’t think I can stand it.”

Brandy put her arm around Cara’s thin shoulders. During the storm, she had to force herself to be the strong one. “Let’s take inventory,” she said, her voice calm. “At least we know more than we did. We know you belonged to the woman at the Otter Creek café.” She stood, her hand pressed against her bruised forehead, and looked at the tightly closed panes. “But knowing that won’t help us much unless we can get out of here.”

“There’s no window latch on the inside.”

Brandy took a few steps around the small room, checked the solid back door—locked—the tiny bathroom and its toilet, shower, and sink, above the toilet its high, narrow jalousie window.

She looked back at Cara. “Did you get the picture at Shell Mound?”

Cara gave a sad shake of her head. “I don’t know. He took my purse and my pictures. Never saw them.”

“I think he did, from what he said just now on the phone.” Brandy sat down again, her gaze fixed on the window, and patted Cara’s slender hand. It was trembling. Rain pattered now against the pane, and they could hear the wind rising in the cypress trees. She took Cara’s chin in her hands and turned her away from the window. Here was a young woman who could hike alone into the woods at night, but could not stand the sound of heavy rain and wind. “I found some useful information in New York. I’m pretty sure I know who your father is. A wealthy attorney.” No need to tell her about Frank Bullen’s paternal doubts. Legally she was his daughter. “The oddest thing I learned is about Nathan Hunt. You remember the good-looking guy at the hotel with the ducktail haircut?”

Cara swallowed and nodded.

“Nathan Hunt is not really Nathan Hunt. His name is Blade Bullen, and I think he’s your half-brother. Probably he was shadowing Rossi. Your father re-married a few years ago. His name is Frank and yours was Belinda, Belinda Bullen. He wants to know about you.”

Cara raised her head, for the moment distracted from the whine of the wind. “I knew you’d find out. My mother?”

“Allison Bullen. Dental tests should confirm that.” Restless, Brandy rose again. “We’re probably here because of the photograph. Somebody thinks you got a picture of them burying Rossi. It’s possible Rossi’s murder doesn’t have anything to do with your mother’s, although now Strong thinks it might.” She opened a folding door into a narrow closet. Rain slickers, a torn life cushion, a can of tobacco, three pairs of dirt-encrusted fishing boots, and the lingering, sweetish smell of marijuana.

“Looks like Strong was right about the drug connection. Our brutish friend is into running pot.” She looked at her watch. Five-thirty. They had to act before the hurricane hit, or it would be too late. “When do they feed the animals here?”

“Oh, God, how can you think of food?”

“I’m not thinking of food. I’m thinking of escape.”

“We couldn’t overpower that gorilla, drunk or sober.”

Brandy slouched again on the bunk. “We got one thing he doesn’t. Brains. That ploy at the drug store—somebody programmed him. He’s working for someone. Could be anybody. Except the person had to know when you were going to the drug store. That narrows it a bit—John and me, MacGill, Truck, Blade Bullen, and, of course, Mar-cia. We know the hotel clerk has a big mouth.”

Tears trembled again in Cara’s voice. “I wonder why he didn’t just shoot me? Why are they holding us?”

“Could be lots of reasons. Some of those people care about you.” Brandy didn’t add aloud another reason. Maybe someone doesn’t want to dispose of more bodies right now. She rummaged in her large tote bag. Camera gone, of course, but she still had her plastic film pouch. Both could hold useful things. Outside the line was still tied to the rail. “We’ve got to think of a plan.”

But she thought first of John. Right now she should be walking through the door of their cluttered apartment, or listening for his key in the lock. She hadn’t seen him since Saturday night. This was Wednesday. Almost a week since she had lain in his arms, since she had last felt loved and secure. He would pour himself a beer and begin waiting. Would he worry that something had happened to her and call the police? Or would he be angry, think once more she had abandoned him for her job?

Cara clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. “If we tried to break a window, that devil would be on us like a flash. He might tie us up. He did that to me. I can’t stand that again.”

A blast of wind and rain rattled the panes. The boat began to rock. “We ought to make our break before it’s completely dark. Before the hurricane makes landfall.”

Cara’s gaze was again drawn to the window. “If he’s not too drunk, he’ll probably bring our food by six. He did yesterday. After that, he’ll be busy with the storm.”

“I wouldn’t count on his seamanship.” Brandy’s eyes brightened. “There’s one real hope. The woman at Fowler’s Bluff. She’ll report that I didn’t come back with her boat, and the rental car’s still there. She knows where I was going. Someone will contact the Sheriff s Office, and Strong will call my husband. He’ll find us, at least after the storm passes.”

She felt a rush of warmth for John. He might be annoyed with her, might be fascinated by Tiffany Moore, but if he knew Brandy was in trouble, he would be an absolute bloodhound.

Cara pointed toward the window. “Brandy, look.”

Moose had clamored down from the houseboat. They watched him crash through the wet underbrush toward the end of the island. They waited, pulses racing. Maybe he had deserted his post for safer shelter. But in a few minutes they saw him tug Brandy’s skiff along the island shore, saw him throw its oar far out into the roiling water, turn the boat upside down, and with a mighty heave, send it sliding into the river. They watched it twist and turn until it bobbed around the bend out of sight.

Cara’s hand flew to her mouth. “They’ll find your empty boat. My God, your husband will think you drowned in the storm.”

CHAPTER 18
 

At 5:45 Brandy heard the lock turn again. The pocket door slid a foot to one side and Moose thrust his perspiring face against the opening. He had grown a bristly stubble, and for the first time Brandy noticed a missing tooth.

“Chow time.” He stooped and with thick fingers set a pan of tomato soup, two slices of stale bread, and two tablespoons on the top step. Unsteadily he straightened up and hoisted a vodka bottle before the opening. “Have us a little party. Soon’s I move the damned boat out a-ways. Gonna be a helluva blow tonight. Hurricane party.” He peered again at Brandy and Cara, huddled together on the side of the lower bunk. “Two of you be fun.” He dangled a rope from one big hand, his heavy brows contracting. “I’ll make sure you gonna cooperate.” They looked back with faces of stone. Nausea rose in Brandy’s throat. A demon from hell, Brandy thought, remembering Dante’s
Inferno,
the classic she’d packed to re-read over the weekend—a weekend that seemed eons ago.

After Moose slammed the door, Brandy stepped forward and peeped through the square glass panel.

Pale, Cara whispered, “Remember, he’s got a gun.” Brandy could see him sitting at the wheel, fingers drumming on the console. Then he stood, yanked a yellow rain slicker from a rack in the galley, pulled it on, and opened the wheel house door. The wind was rising, and she could make out his yellow bulk bent against it in the rain.

Brandy carried the pan across the swaying floor to the bunk, handed a spoon to Cara, and took a sip of the tepid soup. “Got to keep up our strength.” Suddenly she gazed at the heavy handle, then into the open bathroom, up at the narrow window, and felt a surge of excitement. “Keep a watch on Moose.”

Dropping the toilet lid, she climbed onto it, holding the spoon. She estimated each jalousie pane’s width at about five inches. Removing at least three might give them an escape route. On tiptoe, she pried with the handle at the metal flange that held the bottom glass in place. “Maybe we have a chance. This is one way burglars get into a lot of Florida houses.” She had worked one side of the pane loose when the handle snapped. “What’s he doing?”