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Refuge Cove (New Americana 2)

Page 67

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Knowing better than to take a false step, Emma walked to stand at his elbow. The door behind them was partway open. Emma’s hand brushed its cold metal surface. “Here I am,” she whispered in Boone’s ear. “Now what do you say we get out of here?”

She felt him tense. Boone was strong, and he had the reflexes of a cougar. As long as he had his gun on David, there was no way she could outmaneuver him. Even with the pistol in her pocket, she could do nothing until John and his son were safe. She could only react to whatever move Boone chose to make.

When he made it, she had no time to prepare. In a single motion, he shoved David forward onto his face, yanked Emma through the door, and slammed it shut behind them. She was still fumbling to unzip her pocket and get to her pistol when he slid the heavy bolt and turned around with his gun pointed at her.

“Pretty good show out the

re, baby,” he said. “But you didn’t have me fooled. When we get to where we’re headed, I’m going to make you scream.”

The warehouse was a cavernous space, most of it empty. The only light, falling through high windows and two glass skylights in the roof, was cast by the waning moon. Emma could see her way, and she could see Boone, standing next to her, gripping her arm, but little else.

She imagined John outside the door, picking up his son and helping him to the Jeep. They would be all right, but there was no way he could get past the locked door to help her. It was time to fight for her life.

“Please, Boone.” The fingers of her free hand had made it past the zipper to the gun in her pocket. Her fingertip disengaged the safety. She couldn’t get the gun out without his seeing it, but maybe she wouldn’t have to.

“Please let me go,” she begged, trying to distract him. “Without me along, you can make a clean getaway. You can start over somewhere, make a new life.”

“Sorry, babe, but I can’t leave you behind,” he said. “You set the fire that burned me and turned me into a freak. No way am I letting you go. But I’ll give you a choice. Either you come with me, or I shoot you right here. What’s your answer?”

She’d found the trigger. Twisting the gun inside the pocket, she turned and forced herself to kiss him. But the kiss was awkward enough to make him suspicious. She was just squeezing the trigger when he shoved her arm. The shot went wild. The gun’s recoil knocked her hand out of her pocket and sent her staggering backward. The weapon skittered across the floor, into the dark.

“You little bitch!” Boone slapped her so hard that she saw stars. “I could kill you now, but that would take the fun out of it. Come on, let’s go.”

Yanking her arm, he dragged her toward something she hadn’t noticed until now. Framed by a low wooden rail was an opening in the floor with a stairway leading down to the water under the dock. At the foot of the stairway, barely visible in the dim, reflected light, was a boat.

As Boone dragged her down the stairway, Emma could see the boat more clearly. It was an open sport boat with an inboard motor, the kind of craft that might be used for water skiing or light fishing. It would make for a clever getaway. No one would see Boone leaving with her until it was too late to stop him.

Emma tried to keep fighting, but Boone was a powerful man, and by now she was exhausted. He dragged her down the last few steps and shoved her forward into the boat. As she fell, something struck her head. Stunned but still conscious, she lay still.

* * *

John had pulled the tape off David’s mouth, freed his hands, and was about to help him up when he heard the gunshot from inside the warehouse. He recognized the report of a small pistol, most likely the Kel-Tec he’d given Emma. But he had no way of knowing what had happened.

David was sitting up, looking pale and shaken. “I’m fine,” he said. “Go.”

John ran to the jeep, grabbed his .44 from under the seat, and sprinted back to the door of the warehouse. That was when he discovered the door was made of painted sheet metal and securely bolted from the inside. From inside he could hear Boone’s voice, fading with distance. So Boone was still alive, but did he still have Emma?

Mouthing something between a curse and a prayer, he raced around the corner of the building to look for another entrance. Then from underneath the far end of the dock, he heard a sound that made his heart drop. It was the starting roar of a powerful motor.

As John raced down the dock, a boat shot from between the pilings and headed out of the harbor, bound for open water. Boone was at the wheel. Emma, barely glimpsed, was lying across the rear seat. She was struggling to sit up.

By the time John reached the end of the dock, the boat was a hundred yards away. He could see it in the moonlight, headed for the mouth of the harbor, but the distance was too far for an accurate pistol shot. He might hit Emma or shoot a hole in the boat and sink it. All he could think to do was rush back to the Jeep and call the coast guard in the hope of intercepting the boat.

Then it happened. Boone glanced back and saw John, standing there. Whooping like a savage and revving the motor, he did something only a person as crazy as Boone would have done. He made a wide, circular turn and came back around on a course that would take him past the end of the dock at a distance of fifty yards. As he roared past, he shouted something and raised his hand, middle finger up, in an obscene gesture.

John shot him.

And Emma flung herself out of the boat.

* * *

The water felt like striking rough concrete as she hit. Then the icy cold closed around her. Such cold. The shock of it went clear through her.

Instinctively she kicked to the surface. She’d had a swimming class in college, but as a swimmer she was no better than average. And she’d never tried to swim in water this cold.

Her legs were stronger than her arms. She lay on her back, exposing as much of her body as possible to the air as she kicked with her legs. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she should have stayed in the boat with Boone. But drowning or freezing would be a kinder death than what he would have done to her.

A memory flashed through her mind, the movie Titanic, with Jack clinging to the wreckage, slowly freezing to death in the icy water. Jack had taken a long time to die. Something told her that dying for real didn’t take anywhere near that long.



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