Envy the Night

35

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Nora didn’t know what had happened. One second King was standing above her and firing at the figure on the island, and the next drops of blood showered across the boat and he collapsed on top of her. Her first thought was that lightning had hit him; her second was that the person on the island had returned fire. Then she felt the boat begin to tip, and the source of King’s demise was no longer a concern.

They rolled backward until her hair was almost in the water, and she thrashed against him, trying to push forward, send them the other way. He was too heavy, though, and the tape kept her from using her arms or legs to push him off. She rocked back and threw herself forward again, a desperate heave, and still he was on top of her, his blood dripping through her hair and down her cheek. The wind gusted again, shook the boat just enough to worsen the lopsided weight, and they slid back toward the water. She had a fraction of a second to suck air in through her nose and brace for the cold, and then they were over the side and she was sinking.

She fell fast and soundlessly, dropped through the frigid water with a sense of terror and helplessness she’d never felt and couldn’t have imagined before, strong and healthy and uninjured and dying all the same.

Bunched up the way she was, unable to kick with her feet or pull with her arms, she sank quickly, dropped all the way to the bottom. Her eyes were open, and she could see the shimmer of light that was the surface, knew that she would die staring up at it.

Then she bounced. She’d landed on her ass, but a final violent twist got her feet under her, and she realized that the tape had taken every important motion away from her except one: She could bend her knees.

She pressed her feet into the lake bottom and bent at the knees and pushed off as hard as she could, shot upward again. The lake wasn’t deep here, maybe ten feet, and that one massive push was enough get her to the surface. Enough for one gasping inhalation through her nose. Then she sank again.

This time she was equally sure she’d die on the bottom. The little bit of air she’d gotten didn’t feel like nearly enough, but she also didn’t need to wait for the bounce this time, knew what she had to do, and so she landed with her feet out, almost upright. One more bend and push, one more rise, but she knew it was futile even as she headed toward the surface. She wasn’t getting enough air with these brief appearances above the water, and the adrenaline-fueled strength was fading fast. She could manage another rise or two, maybe, but eventually she wouldn’t come up fast enough and she’d frantically try for a breath and take in water instead, drown, and sink back to the bottom, this time for good.

She hit the surface, got a little more air this time, then sank again without ever seeing anything but angry dark clouds. Her feet hit the bottom and she went through that hopeless routine one more time, probably the last repetition she could manage, bend and push. This time she came up under the boat.

Her first reaction to breaking the surface beneath the upside-down boat was panic, but it saved her life. Instead of simply sinking again, she instinctively jerked her head backward, as if to clear herself out from under the boat. She didn’t clear it, of course, but instead drilled the back of her skull against the aluminum frame, wedged between one of the seat brackets and the side of the boat.

She stuck. Only temporarily, for a few seconds, but it was enough to hold her head out of the water so she could get a breath and realize what had happened. Then she felt herself sliding away from the bracket, ready to sink again, and responded by arching her back. The motion forced her head back against the bracket and lifted her legs, and her body slid into an awkward floating position, as close to a survival float as you could possibly achieve with no arms to balance you. It wouldn’t have been possible without the bracket there under her head, but it worked now.

Breathe. That was all she had to do, all she needed to worry about for this moment, just sucking air in through her nose, trying to get as much oxygen into her lungs as possible before she slipped out of this position and sank again. She hauled the air in, her chest rising and falling, got in at least five breaths before she began to slide away from the bracket again.

She tried to repeat the motion that had worked before, arching her back and lifting her legs, but this time she couldn’t find the bracket, and her head kept sliding away.

No, no, no. Come back, I can stay alive here, I can stay alive . . .

The water was over her face and she was sinking again when she realized that it hadn’t been her head sliding away from the bracket, but the other way around. The boat was moving, pushed aside. She watched it move as she dropped, was three feet deep and still going when legs bumped against her back and then an arm encircled her, wrapped around her neck and hooked under her chin and lifted.

A second later she broke the surface, blinked water out of her eyes, and stared at Renee, unable to utter a single word of thanks because of that damn tape.

Ezra dropped the rifle and got to his feet, hardly conscious of the assailant who still lingered in the woods behind him, and looked around his boat for some way to help.

The key was gone, and he didn’t have time to hotwire the ignition. That left no power source but the electric trolling motor, and though it would surely be too slow it was the only chance he had. Ezra couldn’t make a swim like that, not anymore.

A swim. The thought triggered a memory of Renee and the initial source of the shooting. She was so much closer to the overturned boat, and she could swim. Had she seen what happened? Did she know Nora was in the water?

He turned back to search the lake for her, but then something moved onshore behind him, and he whirled back to face it, reaching for the rifle.

“Shit,” he said and picked up the rifle but left it pointed down. The movement on shore was from Vaughn, who had just stepped out of the trees, holding his gun ahead of him with a wavering grip.

“Come on!” Ezra yelled, turning to the trolling motor, a hopeless effort but the best he could now make for Nora. “Get out here.”

Get Vaughn and go after Nora. That’s what Ezra was thinking as he stepped up into the bow, the gun held loosely at his side, his eyes scanning the woods to see if anyone else was approaching. No, just Vaughn, and why wouldn’t he hurry, and lower that damn gun before somebody got—

Vaughn fired from the shoreline, and for a second Ezra was so stunned he didn’t react, but then he realized it hadn’t been an accident and he got both hands around the rifle and lifted it as Vaughn took a second shot, missing again, and a third.

The third round caught Ezra in his right side, blew through his ribs and out of his back and splattered blood and flesh off the windshield that guarded the steering console. He tried to keep lifting the rifle, to get it aimed at Vaughn, but the bullet had spun him and now he was stumbling. His knees banged off the side of the boat and he couldn’t right himself, flipped over the side and fell into the tangled branches of a partially submerged tree. The branches snapped under him, and he dropped into the water as Vaughn fired again, missing again. Ezra tried to lift the rifle, but it was too heavy now. Or was it even in his hand?

Another branch snapped, and he dropped again, and then the gray sky was fading into an odd red mist and Ezra couldn’t focus anymore, couldn’t see to fire even if he’d had the gun ready to shoot. The red mist spun into black and then shattered into jagged points of light, and Ezra Ballard closed his eyes and welcomed the water.

Renee got the tape off Nora’s hands first, which allowed her to hang on to the boat while Renee freed her feet. The feeling of power, of life, that came back to Nora as she moved her legs and arms was intense. She could support herself again, move again, was no longer helpless. She tore the tape off her mouth, smacked her lips together and sucked in a grateful breath of air and rain, tasted the fresh water on her stale tongue.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

The rain was hammering the overturned boat, a sound like a drum corps, but even so they both stopped talking and listened as another sound, a series of cracks, echoed over the water.

“Guns,” Renee said. “Somebody’s shooting.”

Nora didn’t say anything. The strength was already fading from her newly freed legs, and even the gentle kick needed to stay upright seemed difficult.

“Can we roll it over?” she said.

“The boat?” Renee shifted in the water, looked at the capsized boat as if surprised that Nora would want to be inside it. She was treading water easily, her breathing steady. Beneath the surface, her arms and feet moved in ghostly circles, her hair fanning out around her shoulders.

“Let’s roll it,” Nora said and leaned back and tried to push the craft up, succeeded only in driving herself deeper in the water.

“All right. We can try.” Renee swam closer, dipped under the boat, and braced her hands on the edge, as Nora had. “On three.”

It took them two tries, but they flipped it. The motor was the key; once that weight had shifted enough, it overbalanced the boat and did the rest of the work for them. By the time the boat was finally floating upright, though, they didn’t have the strength left to climb into it. They waited for a few seconds, hanging off the side, and then tried again. This time Nora made it easily, then turned back and got her hand around Renee’s forearm and helped her into the boat.

They sat there on the bottom of the boat, getting their breath back and staring at one another. The water had been freezing, but now Nora felt even colder as the wind fanned over them.

“Where are the others?” Renee reached up and gathered a handful of her hair, ran her hand down it in a fist, squeezing the water out. Her eyes were on the lake, away from Nora.

“On the island. Well, one of them is dead. The guy they left on the boat with me is dead. I think someone shot him. That’s why we tipped over.” Nora took a deep breath, wiped water from her eyes, and said, “And Devin is waiting at Frank’s cabin.”

Renee sat with her hand still wrapped in her wet hair and stared at Nora with a look that made Nora’s neck prickle.

“What did you say?”

“Your husband is waiting at Frank’s cabin.”

Renee said, “You’re confused,” but Nora was already shaking her head.

“He’s alive, and he’s there,” she said. “He’s not in good shape, but he’s alive. Vaughn shot him.”

Renee let go of her hair. Her mouth was parted slightly, her eyes distant. “Vaughn shot him?”

“That’s what Devin said.” Nora watched the other woman’s face, then added, “That’s what Devin said while he put me and Frank into a van at gunpoint and came out here and had an FBI agent murdered at the cabin. The one named AJ killed him with a knife.”

The words slid by Renee without any apparent effect. She said, “Vaughn shot Devin. I’ve been up here with him, and he’s the one who shot Devin. He tried to kill Devin.”

“Yes,” Nora said.

Renee was looking at the lake without seeming to see anything. She said it again. “Vaughn shot him.”

Nora was shivering violently now, the wind and her drenched clothing combining to drop her body temperature.

“Can we start the motor?” Renee said.

Nora turned and looked at it. The thing had been upside down for a while, but it still looked in place, everything as it should be.

“Probably.”

“Try to start it, please.”

“Where are we going?” Nora asked as she moved for the stern.

“To my husband. But first we’re going to stop at that island. I left a gun there.”

When he heard the first shot, Frank was down in the hole with AJ, relieving the body of its gun and the boat key. The sound almost dropped him to his knees, overwhelming him with a sense of defeat. He was too late. Ten minutes had gone by and Nora Stafford was dead. He’d let her die.

Then there was another shot, and a third, and it was this last one that got him moving again, because it hadn’t come from a handgun. He recognized it as a rifle shot, and King didn’t have a rifle.

He was running toward the shots but angled too far to the left and ran into a tangle of undergrowth that he and AJ had not encountered on their walk into the woods. At first he tried to push through it, but that was a bad idea, and he fought his way back out of it and ran parallel to the lake, looking for a gap in the brush that would let him get back down to the shore and to the boat.

He heard voices—it sounded like Ezra—and then there was another volley of shots, three in succession. Who was shooting? He slapped branches aside and cleared the trees, found himself at the top of a muddy bluff, Ezra’s boat screened from sight. Out on the water, the smaller boat, where Nora and King should be waiting, seemed to have overturned and was now floating upside down in the lake. He could see people in the water.

The bluff was steep and slick with wet mud, but he fought his way down it, turning his feet sideways to limit his momentum, his shoes plowing furrows in the soggy earth, and then he was in the water up to his knees, splashing down the shore toward the collection of stumps and trees where he’d left Ezra’s boat.

As he stumbled through the water, something began to happen with the boat out in the lake. It rose in the air once, then twice, and finally it flipped back over, resting upright again. Two people climbed onto it, and even from out here Frank could see that neither one was tall enough to be King. What the hell had happened? Was Ezra out there with Nora somehow? Or Renee?

When he came around the bluff, Ezra’s boat appeared, and he saw Vaughn on board, standing in the stern, using the trolling motor to pull away from the island.

“Hey!” Frank shouted. “Hey!”

Vaughn turned at the sound, lifted a gun, and fired two wild shots that hit in the water some twenty feet to Frank’s right.

“Stop shooting, you idiot! It’s me! It’s Frank!”

Vaughn was still holding the gun, but he stopped firing, hesitating, and Frank yelled, “Bring it over here! I’ve got the key!”

Vaughn looked down at the big, silent engine on the stern and then lowered his gun. He was struggling with the trolling motor, didn’t seem to understand how to use it, and Frank, trying to go out to meet the boat, was now in water up to his chest, holding the gun high to keep it from going under.

Vaughn finally got the boat pointed in the right direction, and when it reached him Frank caught the side, took one deep breath, and heaved up, got his knee on the side, and used that leverage to force his way onto the boat.

He was collapsed on the starboard seat, fighting for breath, when Vaughn let go of the trolling motor and turned to him with the gun held out in a shaking hand.

“Give me the key.”

Frank stared at him. “What? Get that gun out of my face, asshole.”

“Give me the key!”

Out on the lake a motor coughed several times and then caught, and both Frank and Vaughn looked toward the sound and saw that the aluminum boat was in motion again, headed toward another island, away from them. Vaughn kept staring after it, and Frank planted his feet on the floor, then rose and swept Vaughn’s gun down and away, hit him once in the chest with a closed fist. It knocked Vaughn back against the steering console, and Frank locked his left hand around Vaughn’s wrist and twisted until the fingers opened up and the gun fell to the bottom of the boat.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said, his face close to Vaughn’s, whose entire body seemed to be shaking. “You could have killed me, you stupid bastard.”

Frank knelt and picked up the gun, wedged it beneath the seat, out of the way, and then put the key in the ignition and twisted. As the motor came to life, Vaughn moved away, and Frank straightened and stared out at the departing aluminum boat. It looked like Nora was at the motor. There was no way she’d hear him, so he lifted his arm and waved it in a slow arc. Finally she saw him and lifted her own hand, but kept taking the boat away, toward the other island.

“What’s she doing?” Frank said, dropping to the seat and moving his hand to the throttle.

“Renee was on that island,” Vaughn said.

“I think she’s on the boat now. What happened to the one who was with Nora on the boat, though?”

Vaughn didn’t answer.

“What about Ezra?” Frank twisted the wheel and turned the boat to go in pursuit of Nora and Renee.

“They shot him,” Vaughn said.

Frank spun to face him. “What?”

Vaughn nodded, his jaw trembling. “Somebody shot him. He’s dead.”

“Who shot him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, where is he?”

Vaughn lifted an unsteady hand and pointed at the water.