Black River

EIGHTY

O’Brien stepped over to the wall and removed the painting, turning it around to see what was on the back. It was there on the center of the back canvas, in neat handwriting.

In smaller handwriting, in the bottom left side corner was something else. It read:

O’Brien placed the painting back on the wall. The Confederate gold. He stared at the enigmatic face of Angelina Hopkins. He thought of Kim. Where are you? He glanced down at his phone, a text message arriving. It was from Dave. He wrote: Kim’s car is in the marina lot. There are torn Confederate rose petals under the wipers, around the base of the car. I fear she’s been taken. Call immediately.

O’Brien felt an adrenaline rush. The brake lights. Silas Jackson. O’Brien was so absorbed in thought, he didn’t hear the slight creak in the wood floor. He did see the reflection move across the glass in the shadow box. He turned around just as James Fairmont looked him directly in the eye, trying to plunge a hypodermic needle into O’Brien’s neck.

The needle entered his shoulder, embedding in a bone, Fairmont pressing the syringe with his thumb. His sea-green eyes arrogant, superior. Some of the content entered O’Brien before the needle snapped in two pieces, the remaining chemical yellow liquid squirting across Frank Sheldon’s unconscious face. O’Brien reached for the pistol.

Fairmont charged, connecting a hard punch into O’Brien’s stomach. He pushed O’Brien against the wall, shattering the glass shadow boxes. His left fist caught O’Brien above the eyebrow, ripping skin, blood flowing. O’Brien brought his elbow down hard on the crown of Fairmont’s head. The blow dazed him. O’Brien reached for the Beretta just as the woman bolted from the closet. She ran, slipping. Fairmont turned, grabbing the woman by her wrist and hurling her in front of him. She screamed, urine flowing down her legs onto the polished wood floor.

Fairmont grinned at O’Brien and said, “There’s enough in you to put you out, maybe a coma from which you will never awake. Sleep well, Sean O’Brien.” He pulled the woman with him, backing out of the captain’s quarters and running down the hall.

O’Brien felt nauseous. Head pounding. He glanced down at his phone, re-read the text and hit Dave’s number. Dave said, “I don’t like finding pieces of a Confederate rose around Kim’s car.”

“She’s been kidnapped. I think it was Silas Jackson. I saw a pickup truck at the far end of the lot. One of the brake lights wasn’t working. That day I tailed Jackson from the courthouse to his hideout on the forest, his left brake light was out. It’s him, Dave. It has to be.”

“Where are you now?”

“Sheldon’s schooner. On the river. I found the diamond, the Civil War contract and the painting. And I found James Fairmont, or he found me. He blindsided me. Hit me with a syringe. The needle snapped. But some of whatever he was packing got in my bloodstream.”

“Where’s Fairmont?”

“He used a girl as a body shield to exit. Frank Sheldon’s out cold in his private cabin.”

“Sean, I’m calling 911. You’ll need to be air-lifted off that damn boat.”

“No. The man who killed your best friend and five other people is on this yacht. He can’t escape unless he goes overboard. I’ll find him.”

“If whatever poison is in your bloodstream slows you down, causes you to miss a beat…Fairmont will have the upper hand. He will kill you.”

“I’m more concerned about Kim. It’s my fault that Jackson has her.”

“No, it’s not, Sean. I’ll call the sheriff’s office.”

“Don’t. It’s too much cavalry. Silas Jackson won’t be taken alive. He’ll kill Kim, or use her as a hostage in a shootout.”

“Do you have a better suggestion? We don’t have time to—”

“I’ll find her.” O’Brien disconnected. He removed the plastic bag from his jacket, opened it, dropping his phone inside. “In the cloud,” he said, glancing down at Sheldon, slumped in the leather chair, his chest rising and falling.

O’Brien reached for a handful of Kleenex from a box on the desk. He held the tissue to his head, stopping the flow of blood. He gripped the Beretta in his other hand and stepped out into the flickering light in the hallway. He walked quietly back down the passage, not sure whether the guard was still unconscious.

The guard was there, slumped up against the wall, his breathing slow and steady. The woman who’d tried to flee from the cabin was there too. She was lying on her back next to the guard. But she was not breathing. Her head cocked at an abnormal angle, as if someone might twist the head of a doll, the dead woman’s eyes open, the flicking shadows drifting across her confused and lipstick smeared face.

O’Brien stepped around her body, stopping the blood flow from the cut above his eyebrow. He opened the door to the party on the deck, the guests dancing and singing as the band played Bob Marley’s Redemption Song.