Four Letter Word, page 24
“Just in case you get back here before I do,” he said, zipping up the rain jacket he’d borrowed from Parker’s closet. Izzy understood the implication: If I don’t come back at all.
“Do you think you can disable the boat?”
Jake nodded. “I just need to get into the engine hatch and I can take care of the twin Cats. They won’t be able to leave the dock.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, no engine at sea in a storm like this would be a death sentence.”
“I’ve already almost died three times this week,” Izzy said with a wry smile. “I might be invincible.” She was trying to lighten the mood in the face of an impossibly dark situation, but instead of playing along, Jake gripped her hand so tightly her knuckles cracked.
“Don’t underestimate the sea,” he said, his eyes hard-set. “She’s merciless.”
Izzy recalled the glee on Alberto’s face when he left her to die in her dad’s workshop. “So is he.”
“As soon as Alberto is secured, I’ll manually activate the EPIRB on the cabin roof. That will alert the Coast Guard.”
Izzy knew as much about boats as she did Italian, but growing up in a fishing town, she’d absorbed at least some knowledge, and she was pretty sure the EPIRB was an emergency beacon. Which didn’t seem like it would do them any good in this storm. “Will it work if the whole town is off the grid?”
Jake smiled, the first time since he found her strung up in the garage. “It’s got a GPS beacon and works on a satellite system, just like the Marine VHF. The Coast Guard station on the peninsula has their own power generator. They’ll literally be here in minutes.”
“Okay.” With communications down, this seemed like the only option. Stopping at the police station or Coast Guard would have wasted precious time, and once Bodega’s Bane was out of the bay, the chances of anyone finding them were basically zero. The best shot was to disable the boat’s engines so they could never even leave the dock, but Izzy knew it was a long shot, and a dangerous one at that.
“We’ll have strength in numbers,” Jake said, reading her mind.
“Right.” Izzy took a deep, steadying breath and pulled the hood of her rain jacket up over her head. Without help from the authorities, their plan was to climb onto the boat under cover of the storm, disable the engine, and then restrain Alberto until they could get him to the police. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best they could do on their own. And the only way they could think of to save Peyton.
“Mike’s gun is in a storage cabinet beside the bilge pump. Enter the cabin through the aft door and it’ll be at the base of the stairs up to the wheelhouse.”
She didn’t like the idea of bringing a firearm into the equation, but it might give them an advantage. “Got it.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “Ready?”
She wanted to tell him a million things while they were still in the relative safety of his pickup—about her mom and dad, her childhood, the way she’d become a caretaker, and how she didn’t want any of that to affect her relationship with him. She wanted to tell him that she loved him in a way she’d never thought herself capable of loving another person, and how if they survived this night, he’d better be prepared to have Izzy in his life forever.
But they didn’t have time, and so Izzy could only smile and nod, then push open the door of the truck and catapult herself into the raging storm.
Wind whipped at her face, fluttering the hood of her jacket, and she had to pull the drawstring even tighter to keep it from flying off. The storm roiled around her, pelting her from several directions at once as she sloshed through the partially flooded parking lot. She was instantly disoriented, and if it hadn’t been for the truck behind her, she wouldn’t have been able to tell which direction to go.
Thankfully, Jake knew this area like he’d been born in the marina. One hand on her elbow, he guided her through the pitch black toward the docks.
Even though she couldn’t see the small, handwritten sign, the words “Caution: Slippery” were in her mind as they reached the gangway. She could hear the usually placid water of the inner reach slamming into the rocky barrier that surrounded Woodley Island, and as she half ran, half slid down to the dock, she felt a rolling wave push up from underneath them, submerging the gangway in an inch of water. Maybe she should have opted for her rain boots instead of running shoes?
Izzy had no time to contemplate her choice of footwear. Near the end of the dock, a light flared to life, piercing the blackness. It pitched and bobbed against the black background of the night, buffeted by the waves, and even through a sheet of near-horizontal rain, Izzy recognized Bodega’s Bane.
The exterior boat lights hit the dock, dancing over other slips, many of which were empty. And as her eyes were adjusting to the light, she noticed that the boat was moving. Bodega’s Bane was backing out of its slip.
Izzy had no time to think, no time to consult with Jake. She could only think of saving Peyton. She broke into a sprint, hitting the floating dock so fast she hydroplaned past two slips before she was able to regain traction. She could see a crouched figure moving on deck, and judging by its slight build, it had to be Peyton. Which meant Alberto was piloting the boat. It had cleared the dock, engine roaring against the onslaught of waves in the narrow channel, and was starting forward.
They were too late.
“No!” Izzy cried in frustration as she watched the boat begin to churn its way out of the marina. What were they going to do? She couldn’t just leave Peyton to her fate. She pulled out her phone, already damp from her jeans pocket, and practically wept in frustration as she saw that she still didn’t have a signal.
“I’m sorry,” Jake shouted at her side. “It’s too late.”
Suddenly, a wave blossomed up in the middle of the channel, pushing the boat back toward Izzy and Jake. Its stern thudded against the dock, tantalizingly close. She could see Peyton rushing to port, checking for damage over the gunwale, and in that moment, Izzy made a decision. Without thinking, she launched herself forward at full tilt, pushing off the edge of the dock and propelling herself into the air. For a split second she was airborne, blasted by a gust from the north. She felt like fall leaves at the mercy of the breeze. She saw the boat beneath her, moving forward under the full force of its engines, and then as she fell, her foot caught the railing and she tumbled forward.
Just as she was preparing herself for a cold splashdown and a lungful of seawater, she crashed onto the slick deck of Bodega’s Bane.
Izzy’s hip took the brunt of the impact before her shoulder collided with the fiberglass bait station in the middle of the aft deck. She lay crumpled in a ball, catching her breath, expecting to be discovered at any moment. But Peyton had disappeared.
Izzy popped her head up, just far enough to see over the side of the vessel as it lumbered away from the dock. The stern running lights barely permeated the sheets of rain surrounding them, and Izzy couldn’t even see the marina. She hoped that Jake hadn’t tried to leap onto the boat behind her and was still on the dock, not fighting for his life in the angry waters.
Regardless, as Izzy knelt on the deck pelted by relentless rain, two facts were very clear: the boat was already moving, so disabling the engine was no longer an option, and she was very much alone.
She had to get to Mike’s gun.
Creeping forward on her hands and knees, Izzy peeked around the side of the bait station. The deck was empty, the door to the cabin closed. She scurried toward it, crouching low against the wind, and was able to wrench the door open and dash inside.
It was dark in the cabin, the exterior running lights filtered by tinted windows, but a shaft of light from the bridge illuminated the stairs at the front end of the cabin. Clearly visible at the base of the steps was a cabinet with a shiny white-and-black label: “Bilge pump.” Just as Jake described.
The engines roared below, rumbling the floor beneath her feet, and the boat pitched upward as it took a wave head-on. Izzy braced herself against a nearby table, then, as soon as they crested the wave and started down the other side, dashed forward to the cabinet, ripping it open in one deft motion. Her eyes swept over the contents: paperwork, flashlights, thickly coiled rope that made her think of the noose Alberto had used to string her up less than an hour ago. She quietly lifted a few items, searching for anything that looked like a firearm or a holster or a box that might hold either.
Then she heard a low female voice behind her. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
“Peyton!” Izzy whispered. She spun around, ready with a list of explanations and supplications to convince her best friend that Alberto was dangerous, but the words died on her tongue.
Standing in the doorway to the crew quarters, aiming the barrel of a gun directly at Izzy, was her mom.
“MOM?”
The pitching of the boat paled in comparison to the dizzying emotions that overwhelmed Izzy as she stared at her mom in the cabin of Bodega’s Bane. She and Alberto…How? When?
“Izzy,” her mom gasped. Whoever she was expecting to find perving through the boat, it certainly wasn’t her daughter. “What are you doing here?”
I could ask you the same thing was the first response that came into Izzy’s head, but the sad reality was that she knew exactly what her mom was doing there. She must have known her husband was having an affair. Alone, depressed, looking for an escape, her misery had collided with Alberto—handsome, attentive, Italian Alberto. Izzy had no idea what lies he’d told her mom in order to win her cooperation, but she was going to set the record straight.
“He’s not who you think he is,” Izzy said. “He’s not even Italian.”
Instead of protest or a look of confusion, Izzy’s mom took the news in stride. “I know.”
“You know?”
“I speak fluent Italian, Izzy. You think I’d be taken in by that accent?” Her mom lowered the gun and guided Izzy toward the door. “We need to get you out of here.”
Not that getting off a moving boat in the middle of a storm was some simple feat, but even if it were, Izzy certainly wasn’t leaving without her mom. “You’re coming with me.”
Izzy’s mom shook her head. “I can’t.”
“But he’s the Casanova Killer!”
“He’s been accused, Izzy. Evan is completely innocent.”
Evan. Was that even his real name? Doubtful.
“Mom, he tried to kill me.”
Her mom’s eyes grew wide, a mix of shock and disbelief. “What?”
“Three times.”
“No.”
“The stairs were tampered with. The dryer vent too.” Izzy backed toward the aft door. “Mom, he’—”
“He sees me.” Tears welled up in her mom’s brown doe eyes. She looked young, innocent. “My body and my soul. He touches me.”
Izzy shuddered. That whispered sexy time she’d overheard through the vents. It hadn’t been her parents, but her mom and Alberto. He’d probably just come back from killing Kylie. There were so many disturbing layers to this onion, it was difficult to know which one to peel back first.
Her mom sucked in a ragged breath. “We’re…we were going to start over together.”
“He’s killed at least thirteen women.”
“He didn’t.”
“And Hunter.”
“I can’t…”
Izzy slowly raised her hands to her neck and unzipped her rain jacket, pulling the collar wide to expose the raw abrasions on her neck. “He strung me up by a noose in Dad’s workshop. Tried to make it look like suicide.”
Her mom’s eyes flitted down to Izzy’s neck, and then her body seemed to deflate, a balloon untied. She sank forward into Izzy, who wrapped her arms around her mom’s sobbing body. Bodega’s Bane pitched heavily to port and Izzy staggered back against the galley table to keep from toppling over, and just as she was trying to figure out how to get her and her mom off that vessel before it capsized—or worse—she heard a voice that chilled her blood.
“My love?” Alberto’s voice floated down from the bridge. “Who are you talking to?”
Her mom stiffened in Izzy’s arms.
“My love?” An edge in Alberto’s voice now. The strain of his perilous escape attempt was fraying his confidence. Good.
“The crew quarters,” her mom whispered, just loud enough for Izzy to hear. She slid her hand with the gun up to her chest, shielding it from the view of anyone who came up behind her. “Hide.”
Maybe together they could overpower Alberto. Jake had said their strength was in numbers. Izzy and her mom might not equal one Jake Vargas in terms of size, but in terms of fierceness, Alberto was about to have his hands full.
With a quick nod, Izzy took a step toward the crew cabin, tucked down into the bow, but as she moved, she saw a pair of legs descending from the bridge. They were too late.
“Izzy!” Alberto’s voice was gleeful, his face smiling as he ducked down from the wheelhouse. “A family reunion. Lovely of you to join us.” She was impressed by how cool he sounded, as if she’d just popped in for dinner. No hint of surprise at finding her alive.
“Your father never understood,” Izzy’s mom said, holding her daughter’s gaze. Her eyes flicked down to the gun in her hand, and Izzy understood the message: play along. “He has always taken me for granted.”
“‘He’s the sort who can’t know anyone intimately,’” Alberto said, “‘least of all a woman.’”
Izzy cringed. She knew that line. And Alberto hadn’t written it.
“‘He doesn’t know what a woman is,’” Alberto continued. “He wants you for a possession, something to look at, like a painting or an ivory box.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Izzy said out loud. Four-letter words be damned. “You’re quoting A Room with a View!”
Alberto looped an arm around Izzy’s mom’s waist and pressed their bodies together so fiercely Izzy was afraid her mom’s diminutive frame would be crushed by the force. Her mom winced and tucked the gun into her armpit.
The boat lurched, pivoting to starboard. There was no one at the wheel.
“‘He doesn’t want you to be real,’” Alberto quoted, oblivious to the actual danger they were in, “‘and to think and to live.’”
“You’re not George Emerson,” Izzy said, rolling her eyes. “Just a bad actor.”
Alberto lowered his face to Izzy’s mom, kissing her hair. “‘He doesn’t love you. But I love you!’” He spun her toward him and kissed her, passionately, one hand caressing the line of her chin while the other moved slowly, imperceptibly, toward the hand that was trapped between their two bodies.
“Mom, the gun!”
The kiss had been a misdirect. In the few seconds Izzy’s mom had been distracted, Alberto ripped the weapon from her grasp.
Izzy knew she wasn’t close enough to try to wrestle the pistol away from Alberto. She’d have a bullet in her chest before she made it halfway. Instead, Izzy dove for the aft door, throwing her body weight against it as she wrenched the handle. The wind whipped it open wide, taking her with it, while the boat careened dangerously on the chaotic waves, no hand at that wheel to guide it through the channel. Izzy tumbled out onto the deck, the howling wind immediately silencing all other noises around her. Though she was pretty sure she heard a loud pop. Like a gun being fired.
Mom! She was trapped inside with a serial killer, and if that had been a gunshot, then her mom might be gravely injured. Or worse. Either way, she had to get them off that boat, but how?
Water sloshed over the side as they tipped dangerously close to the churning surface. Rain and wind pelted her, and Izzy had to grip the railing to keep from hydroplaning. She had no idea what to do. Jake was the one with a plan, even if the first half of it was made moot once the boat left the dock. And the second half…activate the EPIRB? She didn’t even know what it looked like. Jake had said it was some kind of GPS beacon on the roof of the cabin, but that could have been anything. There had to be another way to call for help.
What had Jake said about the EPIRB? It’s got a GPS beacon and works on a satellite system, just like the Marine VHF.
The Marine VHF radio. No phone line or cell tower required. She knew from Hunter’s tour of the boat it was in the wheelhouse, figured it couldn’t be that difficult to operate, and people who owned their own ham radios might run them on batteries. Or a generator. Or, like, maybe even the Coast Guard would hear? That was her best bet. It was worth a chance.
If she could avoid getting shot first.
Izzy crouched low as she inched her way around the port-side deck toward the wheelhouse. The wind pummeled the vessel, and Izzy had to plant a foot against the wall of the wheelhouse in order to get the door open against the onslaught. No flying bullets as she dashed inside, so that was a win, but she didn’t have much time. There was no lock on the door, and no door at all to the stairs that led down to the cabin, but Izzy spotted a clipboard on the dash and jammed it between the handle and the wall, making it impossible to open the port door from the side deck. If Alberto had followed her out into the storm, he’d need to go all the way around the bow to starboard in order to reach her, and that should buy her a few seconds.
The radio was mounted on the ceiling, a little walkie-talkie handset thing attached beside it. She pulled the handset down, noting the “talk” button on one side of the microphone. The base had several dials but only one switch, which had to be the power. She flipped it, and the wheelhouse immediately filled with static. At least it was working.
The readout on the face of the mic showed the number sixteen, which could have been the volume setting, the battery life remaining, or the channel it was on, but Izzy didn’t have time to figure it out. Not that it mattered. This was a Hail Mary pass at best. She pressed down the talk button, held the mic close to her mouth, and spoke as quickly and succinctly as she could.
“Mayday, Mayday.” That seemed like the kind of thing that would get people’s attention. “This is the fishing vessel Bodega’s Bane somewhere in Humboldt Bay. The Casanova Killer is holding two victims at gunpoint.” She swallowed. If anyone was listening, would they actually believe her? “He’s trying to escape under cover of the storm. Mayday. Mayday. This is Bodega’s Bane owned by Mike Bixby. My name is Izzy Bell, and I called Agent Loretta Michaels from the FBI to report this information—”
