Deadly Pursuit

38

The swamp was hot and fetid, choked with clouds of mosquitoes, the pests swarming thicker here than in any other part of the island. Kirstie had lost the strength even to wave them off. They battened greedily on her, leaving a rash of bumps on every inch of exposed skin. When she brushed sweat from her face, her fingers came away dabbed with blood.

The bites didn’t matter. The heat and humidity, the sweat trickling from her hair, the aching exhaustion in every muscle-none of that mattered, either. Nothing mattered except planting one foot in front of the other, pushing herself remorselessly forward, crossing the endless yards of the boardwalk plank by plank, and arriving, finally, at the northern tip of Pelican Key. Then she would be at the cove, where maybe-just maybe-she would find the runabout.

Unless Jack or Steve found her first.

This boardwalk scared her. It was narrow and crooked and dark, and it could so very easily be a death trap. While making her way along it, she was as badly unprotected as she’d been on the beach. And an ambush would be easy in the swamp-the swamp, with its countless hiding places, its croak and buzz of ambient noise to mask more furtive sounds, its canopy of waxen leaves that eclipsed the stars and hung the trees in shadows.

She had never been here at night. The labyrinth of contorted mangroves and crisscrossing channels was creepy enough by day. Darkness made it a nightmare, some fevered blend of known and imagined terrors.

Cottonmouths glided through the opaque, tannin-stained water under her feet. Corn snakes and rat snakes writhed among the fantastically gnarled roots and branches of the mangrove thickets. The foul odor of hydrogen sulfide, signature of decay, hovered over the place like an unwholesome cloud. Somewhere a heron cried; to her left, a clump of marsh grass stirred with unseen activity; behind her, wood creaked in a low, regular rhythm, the footsteps of a restless ghost treading the boards…

She froze.

Footsteps.

Someone else was on the boardwalk. Whether it was Jack or Steve was unimportant. Both were killers now.

Was one of them shadowing her? Doubtful; the tread was heavy and quick, with no suggestion of stealth. It was the walk of a man in a hurry.

Most likely he didn’t even know how near she was. If she could hide till he passed by…

The footsteps quickened, closing in.

She ducked under the low railing and silently lowered herself into the murk, then eased beneath the boardwalk. The water, only slightly less saline than the ocean, was warm and pungent. Her tank top and shorts, instantly soaked through, clung to her skin in wrinkled patches.

It was difficult to judge the swamp’s depth. The tide was not yet in, the red mangroves’ arching prop roots only partially submerged. Her feet kicked, searching for the muddy bottom, then sank into spongy ooze nearly up to the ankles.

Her collarbone was at the waterline. The underside of the boardwalk loomed ten inches above her head. Not much clearance, but more than there would be at high tide.

She waited.

The footsteps were closer now. Touching the boardwalk, she could feel vibrations through the planks.

How near was he? Thirty feet? Twenty?

The creaks became solid thumps. Loosened dirt fell from between the planks, showering her in a gritty rain.

He was directly overhead.

She willed him to keep going, pass her by.

He stopped.

The moan welling in her throat would be fatal if released. She bit down hard and held it in.

What the hell had he stopped for? There was no way he could know she was hiding here. No possible way.

A pale flicker of luminescence above her. The wavering beam of a flashlight. It swept over the water near the boardwalk, then stopped, a small floating object pinned its glare.

One of her sandals.

She drew a quick, silent gasp.

The sandal must have slipped free when she entered the water. Bobbing on the surface, it pointed out her hiding place like a traitorous hand.

He’s on to me. Oh, God, he knows I’m here.

Abruptly the flashlight swung downward, shining on the boardwalk itself, the beam’s splintered rays fanning through the gaps between the planks.

Could he see her through the cracks? She didn’t think so.

Her teeth wanted badly to chatter. She ground her jaws.

The light inched toward her, arriving in successive waves of vertical bands, crawling over her face, her hair, then slowly moved on.

He hadn’t seen her. She might be okay, then. If he decided to keep walking A yard from her head, the planks exploded in a hail of splintered wood.

Shock and terror nearly tore a scream from her lips.

He had the gun-must be Steve, then-and he’d fired directly at the boardwalk, hoping to either kill her with a lucky hit or drive her into the open.

Over the shrilling clamor in her ears, she faintly heard the creak-thump of another footstep.

Above her. Directly above.

Heedless of noise- his ears must be ringing, too-she flung herself backward, dog-paddling wildly.

A second blast. Another yard of the boardwalk, shredded. Debris showered her. The blue muzzle flash lighted the swamp like a burst of fireworks.

She refused to be panicked into committing a suicidal error. What she needed was cover. Cover that would allow her to swim to a new hiding place without being seen.

Scanning the black water, she saw a thicket of red mangroves growing adjacent to the boardwalk twenty feet away.

Overhead, creak-thump.

Again he was above her, tracking her by luck or instinct.

She executed a clumsy breast stroke, using her arms only, afraid to kick because the churning water might draw his aim. She swam for the trees.

Behind her, a third gunshot. Spray of splinters and nails. Was he planning to obliterate the entire boardwalk three feet at a time?

She kept swimming. The mangroves glided alongside her. Their exposed roots glistened in the patchy starlight, a cage of polished wicker. She kept the roots between her and the flashlight’s glow as she circled around the mangrove cluster and took cover behind the trees.

From this position she couldn’t see the boardwalk, couldn’t know if Steve had glimpsed her escape. She could only wait for the next shot, and the next.

Nothing.

The gun was silent.

The flashlight beam swept slowly over the swamp, first on the far side, then nearer to her. She saw its silvery trail in the water, gleaming like a long finger of moonlight.

The dense mesh of roots hid her from the beam even when it prowled over the mangroves. Still, the funnel of light hesitated, as if studying the trees.

“Kirstie…!”

Jack’s voice-not Steve’s-raised in a shout.

What was he doing with the gun? Had Steve given it to him? Or were there two guns somehow?

“I know you’re hiding there. No other place for you to be.”

The beam glided across the water near the trees, silent and supple as a snake.

“You can’t stay hidden for long, darling. I can see in the dark. Got my flashlight back; picked it up on the trail while I was heading for the cove. Not hard to guess that you’d be on your way over there. I’m afraid your game plan has been entirely too predictable.” His voice lilted, became laughter. “Come on out now. Ollee ollee oxen free

…” The childhood call of hide-’n’-seek.

The flashlight bobbed, trembled. A soft splash.

The angle of the beam was suddenly flatter, its point of origin near her eye level.

Rippling-water sounds.

Oh, hell.

Jack had left the boardwalk. He was coming after her. Sloshing through the water toward the trees.

At her back was a narrow channel unspooling like a ribbon between walls of mangrove roots. She took it, paddling furiously, retreating deeper into the swamp.

Her beating legs and arms stirred up new eruptions of mosquitoes. Their frenzied whines pursued her like the screams of angry ghosts.

Steve was on his way to the dock at the south end of the island when three gunshots sounded from the north.

He turned back, heading up the trail at a run. From somewhere ahead rose Jack’s voice, faint but audible.

“Kirstie… I know you’re hiding there…”

Other words, softer, unintelligible.

Quick tears misted his eyes.

She was alive.

Alive and hiding, apparently. Jack seemed confident enough of catching her.

But he hadn’t succeeded yet.

At the boardwalk Steve paused to slip off his Nikes. He knotted the laces to his belt, letting the shoes swing at his hip, then crept onto the planks, hunched low to make a smaller target. Barefoot, he made almost no sound as he proceeded deep into the belly of the swamp.

The planks disappeared abruptly. Giant holes in the walkway gaped at him like mouths, rimmed with glistening fangs of splintered wood.

What the hell had happened here?

No time to think about it. In the trees, a yellowish flicker.

Robbed of his glasses, he saw it only as a tremulous blur, a blob of color shivering like a raindrop on a windowpane. He identified it anyway. Jack’s flashlight.

The bastard was hunting her in the black swamp water, looking for a clean shot.

With the Beretta, the flash, and the knife. Jack enjoyed a triple advantage over either of his adversaries. Steve could think of only one possible point in his own favor.

He doesn’t know I’m here.

A small consolation, but it was all he had.

Soundlessly he swung down off the boardwalk, into the inky water, and joined in the chase.