Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 63

SLOWLY, CONSTANCE REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS. It was very dark. She was aware of both nausea and a splitting headache. She stood still a moment, slumped forward, confused, as her head cleared. And then, quite suddenly, she recalled what had happened.

She tried to move, but found that her hands were handcuffed to a chain around her waist and her legs were bound to something behind her — this time, very firmly. Her mouth was covered by duct tape. The pitch-black air was damp and smelled of diesel fuel, oil, and mold. She could feel the gentle rocking and the sound of water slapping against a hull — she was on a boat.

She listened intently. There were people on board — she could hear muffled voices above. She stood quite still, trying to collect her thoughts, her heartbeat slow and steady. Her limbs were stiff and sore: she must have been unconscious for hours, perhaps many hours.

Time passed. And then she heard footsteps coming closer. A sudden crack of light appeared, and a moment later a bulb went on. She stared. Standing in the doorway was the man who called himself both Esterhazy and Dr. Poole. He stared back at her, his handsome face scored both by nervousness and the scratches she herself had inflicted. Behind him, in a tight hallway, she could see a second, shadowy figure.

He moved toward her. “We’re going to move you. For your own sake, please don’t try anything.”

She merely stared. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

Taking a knife from his pocket, he cut the layers of duct tape that affixed her legs to a vertical structural post in what was now clearly a hold. In another moment she was free.

“Come on.” He reached over and hooked his hand in one of her cuffed arms. She stumbled forward, feet numb, legs cramped, little sparks of pain shooting through them with each movement. He helped her get in front of him and eased her toward the tiny door. She stooped to go through it, Esterhazy following.

The shadowy figure stood outside — a woman. Constance recognized her: the red-haired woman from the adjoining garden. The woman returned her stare, coolly, a faint smile on her lips.

So Pendergast had not gotten the note. It had been futile. Indeed, it had apparently been some sort of ruse.

“Take the other arm,” Esterhazy told the woman. “She’s extremely unpredictable.”

The woman took her other arm, and together they escorted her down a passageway toward another, even smaller hatch. Constance did not resist, allowing herself to be pulled along, her head hanging down. As Esterhazy leaned forward to undog the hatch, Constance braced herself; then she turned quickly, ramming the woman violently in the stomach with her head. With a loud oof the woman fell back, crashing into a bulkhead. Esterhazy swung around and she tried to butt him as well, but he seized her in a powerful embrace and pinned her arms. The woman scrambled to her feet, leaned over Constance, pulled her head back by the hair, and slapped her hard across the face, once, twice.

“No need for that,” Esterhazy said sharply. He hauled Constance around. “You do what we say or these people will really hurt you. Understand?”

She stared back, unable to speak, still fighting to catch her breath.

He pushed her into the dark space beyond the hatch, then followed behind with the red-haired woman. They were in another hold, and in the floor was another hatch. Esterhazy loosened the hatch and opened it, revealing a dark, stagnant space. In the dim light, she could see that it was the lowest part of the bilge, where the hull came together in a V — no doubt in the bow area of the vessel.

Esterhazy merely pointed toward the dark, yawning mouth of the hatch.

Constance balked.

She felt a smack across the side of her head as the woman struck her hard with the flat of her palm. “Get down there,” the woman said.

“Let me handle this,” said Esterhazy angrily.

Constance sat down, placed her feet in the hole, and lowered herself slowly in. It was a bigger space than it looked. She glanced up to see the woman preparing to strike her again, this time with her fist. Esterhazy placed a less-than-gentle restraining hand on the woman’s arm. “That isn’t necessary,” he said. “I’m not going to say it again.”

A single tear welled up into Constance’s eye and she shook it away. She had not wept in more years than she could remember, and she would not let these people see her weep now. It must have been the shock of seeing the woman — she realized just how much she’d been clinging to the slender thread of hope her note had offered.

She sat down and leaned against the bulkhead. The hatch shut behind her, followed by a squeak of metal as it was dogged down.

It was pitch black in the space — even darker than the hold had been. The sound of waves lapping the hull filled the bilge, making her feel like she was underwater.

She felt ill, as if she might be sick. But if she was, the duct tape over her mouth would cause her to aspirate, to drown. She could not allow that to happen.

She shifted, trying to get comfortable and focus her thoughts on something else. She was, after all, used to dark, small spaces. This was nothing new, she told herself. Nothing new at all.