Malice

CHAPTER 39

“The way I figure it, you’ve got two choices,” Montoya said as he followed the flashing lights of the police cruiser hauling Jada Hollister to Parker Center. “One, you can tell Hayes straight out that his girlfriend is a freakin’ killer. Or two, you do an end run around him and tell someone else in the squad about it, just in case Hayes is involved.”

Bentz tapped his finger on the window ledge of Montoya’s rented Mustang. “My gut tells me Hayes isn’t in on it. How could he be? With all the hours he put in with me trying to crack this case? A guy can’t be two places at once.”

“So go with your gut.” Montoya nodded as he took a corner a little too fast and the tires chirped. He slowed for a second, then punched it again as he hit the freeway. “It’s worked for you so far. But we’ve got to cut through the crap fast and get to this Corrine. If she’s the one who’s got Olivia, we need to find her now.”

Bentz nodded, unable to clear the image of his wife, peering through the bars of her prison, from his mind. All because of him.

Hang on, he willed her. Just keep it together. We’ll be there soon.

“What really gets my goat is thinking that another cop is behind all this,” Montoya said, staring ahead to the dark road. “Someone from the inside. That’ll be a black eye on the department.”

Another cop. That burned Bentz the most. A woman he’d once cared about, made love to. Corrine. She was behind all the death and destruction. She’d kidnapped Olivia and was planning no doubt to kill her, if she hadn’t already.

To hell with playing by the book.

They planned to follow the squad car to Parker Center, blow the whistle on this cop gone bad, and enlist every hand they could to help them find Corrine O’Donnell.

“We’ll get her,” Montoya said, his face grim in the lights of the dash. “We’ll find Olivia and we’ll nail O’Donnell’s hide to the wall.”

No backing off.

No excuses.

No leniency if she pulled the “I’m a cop” card, or looked at him piteously.

And if Hayes was involved, then he’d go down, too.

A muscle worked in Bentz’s jaw. He just kept tapping his finger, his gaze straight ahead as they flew down the freeway.

His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID-Jonas Hayes. “Hayes,” he said to Montoya, bracing himself for a bevy of lies. If that son of a bitch was involved in the least…

Beside him Montoya glowered, his hands holding the wheel in a death grip.

He cleared his throat. “Bentz.”

“Look, man, I know where Olivia is,” Hayes said, his voice quiet and restrained, as if he were seething with a slow, black fury that was eating him from the inside out.

“Where?” Bentz was wary, slid a glance at Montoya.

“Olivia’s being held on a boat. We got that much from the lab and…oh, hell, there’s more to it than that,” he said tightly. “I recognize the boat from some of the equipment hanging on the walls.”

“You do.”

“It’s the Merry Anne…That’s merry as in Merry Christmas, A-N-N-E. Corrine’s old man owned it. She inherited the boat.”

“O’Donnell?” Bentz asked carefully, though he knew the truth. He had to hear Hayes’s theory word for word so there would be no mistake. “Corrine O’Donnell’s holding Olivia captive on a boat somewhere?”

“Shit, Bentz, I can’t believe it myself but…goddamn it, she’s played me for a fool. Anyway, I’m on my way to the marina now, but it sounds like she’s a step ahead of us. According to the security at the Marina del Rey docks and the harbor patrol, the Merry Anne isn’t in her berth.”

“Where? Where is this marina?” he asked and Hayes gave him the info, which Bentz repeated to Montoya then entered into the G.P.S. “You’re sure it’s Corrine?”

“Fucking Corrine was behind it all. I think…oh, hell I think I fed her information. You know how that is, cop to cop. I never thought she’d…” Hayes’s cool facade cracked. “She’s killed people, people she considered her friends.”

Bentz felt his jaw harden. “Sounds that way.”

“Shit.” In the silence, Hayes seemed to be working to pull himself together. “I’ve called the Coast Guard. They’re on the lookout for her, but she knows how to run that boat. She could be on her way to Mexico by now.”

“And Olivia might be dead.”

Hayes waited a beat and said, “Yeah.” His voice was filled with regret. “Christ, I’m sorry, Bentz.”

“We’ll meet you at the marina,” Bentz said stiffly.

“I’m on my way. Already called backup. Got a boat waiting at the marina.”

As Bentz hung up, his partner was already hitting the gas, following the navigator’s voice on the G.P.S. to head west, toward the Pacific, though Bentz knew the route.

Toward Olivia.

Olivia felt a shift.

The boat’s engine changed speed.

Her heart leapt to her throat. This was it!

The engines died, and the big vessel slowed to a stop. For a few seconds within the hold, it was deadly quiet, the gentle movement slow and eerie. Then she heard the creaking sound of the boat rolling softly with the vast, silent ocean.

How far out to sea were they?

How far from anyone?

She bit her lip and listened. No one knew where she was. No one would ever find her. In the cavernous vessel, Olivia felt more alone than she ever had in her life.

Her cramps had eased, though the twisting ache still hit her every few minutes. Pushing herself up from the floor of the cage, she knew she had to fight.

Somehow…

Don’t give up. Do not!

Fighting her fears, Olivia tried to pull herself together. She tried not to think about the fact that she was still bleeding, slowly yes, but bleeding nonetheless. No doubt miscarrying the baby she wanted so desperately.

She forced herself upright as she heard the heart-stopping noise of a running chain, metal being spun out. Oh Lord! The killer was dropping anchor.

For a second, Olivia couldn’t move.

This, wherever it was off the shore of California, was where the killer had planned for her to die. A slow and torturous death.

Think, Olivia, think! You’re not dead yet!

She reasoned that the boat couldn’t be too far out to sea if the killer expected the boat to be found, her body located, the camera intact.

Her captor was, if nothing else, precise, her plans comprised of minute details, her timeline plotted to the last second. A control freak to the nth degree, she’d chosen this particular spot carefully, had anticipated and savored this moment for years, fantasized exactly how Olivia’s death was to be executed.

“Like hell,” Olivia said. She wasn’t going down without one helluva fight. What was it Grannie Gin had always said when Olivia was growing up?

Where there’s life, there’s hope.

And Olivia wasn’t dead.

Yet.

There had to be a way to outsmart this twisted maniac…maybe fake that her spirit had been crushed, pretend that the killer had “won,” breaking her psychologically, so that her captor would become overconfident, perhaps slip up.

Really? You think for a second a diabolical woman who has been planning this moment for twelve years will make that kind of error?

No way, you have to make sure it happens. You, Olivia. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.

Olivia had to beat the maniac psychologically.

And quickly. Dear God, time was running out. All too soon the boat would start sinking. Wasn’t that her plan? Mother Mary, Olivia couldn’t think of a worse death than trying to save herself, feeling the cold water rush in, push her off her feet, force her to tread water in the cage knowing there was no way out while she was gasping for an ever-dwindling supply of air.

Her heart was pumping crazily and her skin was sheathed in a cold, clammy sweat as she frantically searched the hold for any means of escape.

Stop it! Calm down. Do not panic! That’s what she wants you to do, what she’s counting on. Take a deep breath, count to ten, and think rationally.

Above, the woman was moving around, setting her plan into motion. Olivia had to work fast!

Drawing in a shaky breath, forcing back the terror eating at her, Olivia tried to get hold of herself. She knew the killer wanted her to appear miserable into the camera, for Bentz to be able to watch his wife’s desperate, horrifying confrontation with death over and over again. This woman’s goal seemed to be to haunt Bentz for the rest of his life: first by raising Jennifer from the dead, then by slowly and excruciatingly killing Olivia.

That was her whole game.

Control.

Terror.

To thwart the killer, Olivia would somehow have to deny her the ultimate fantasy, her coup de grâce over Bentz.

The answer was simple: She had to stop the filming.

But how?

If she could reach the oars to knock down the camera and attack her jailer…but that was impossible. Olivia had already tried to stretch through the bars and grab them, only to fail miserably. The same was true of her attempt to reach the fishing poles. Or the tripod.

Out of the question.

She could only use the tools she had handy. A bucket, a water jug, and a photo album.

She tried with the water jug, hurling the contents at the camera through the bars.

Water splashed wildly, drenching her hands and wrists.

The camera with its incessant red light didn’t so much as shudder. “Great.” Hurriedly, she tried pushing the plastic jug through the cage, but even pressing the sides together to make it thin enough to get through the bars proved impossible.

She tried to swing it from her hand, stretching her arm through the iron rails so that she could beat the tar out of the camera.

No luck.

“Damn it.”

Determined, she eyed her surroundings one last time and her gaze landed on the album. Faux leather-bound and stuffed with pictures and articles bound in plastic, it was too thick to pull into her cage.

But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be torn apart, the individual pages used somehow. Heart pounding wildly, her mind spinning with her desperate, newly hatched plan, Olivia reached for the album. Her fingers brushed against the pages and she pressed her shoulder into the bars, straining, barely touching. Gritting her teeth, she stretched as far as possible and the pad of one finger touched the album. She pressed down, dragged it forward but her finger, sweaty from her exertion slipped. Another pain ripped through her and she winced.

“Damn.” Determined, she kept at her task, forcing one hand as far outside the cage as possible, touching the faux leather, inching it closer only to lose it. As she strained, perspiring, she heard the sound of footsteps ringing overhead as her tormentor walked on the deck above. Moving things. Getting ready. To ensure that she and the baby drowned.

No! Olivia wouldn’t allow herself to concentrate on anything but her escape. Nor could she give into the cramps that were wracking her body, reminding her of the fragile life within.

“Be tough,” she said and didn’t know if she were talking to herself or her unborn child. Finally the album was close to the cage. Using both hands, she worked to tear the pages out of their bindings, unfastening the hooks that held the album together.

Her hastily conceived plan had to work!

It had to.

For her.

For Bentz.

For the baby.

Montoya stood on the brakes and the Mustang screeched to a stop at the marina, the frame shuddering. Before the car completely stopped Bentz was out, hitting the ground running, his leg aching, reminding him that he’d already abused it.

He didn’t care. Across the pavement, down the boardwalk, and aboard the sleek Coast Guard cutter, Montoya right behind him. Within seconds, the skipper set sail, easing out of the marina, heading toward open water, moving much too slowly.

Hurry, damn it! Hurry.

He was worried, his eyes trained on the vast, dark Pacific. God, how could they possibly find her? He swallowed back his fear, told himself that there was time, but he was sweating, his heart beating with dread.

As soon as they were away from shore, the captain hit the gas, and the boat roared to life.

Behind them, the lights along the shore were brilliant and festive, reflecting in the water and thankfully receding as they headed out to sea. The cutter knifed through the water, salt spray and wind pushing against Bentz’s face as he searched the darkness, silently praying that his wife was alive. Safe. That there was still time.

Montoya and Hayes were talking over the thrum of the engines and the swish of water.

Strategizing.

But Bentz could only think of Olivia and what she was going through. He felt impotent and weak. All his training, all his years working as a cop, and he couldn’t save her.

His hands curled over the railing. Hang in there, he thought. Oh, Livvie, hang in there.

With each sound from above, a footstep, a chair being scraped against the decking, a rattle of chains, Olivia jumped. “Focus, Olivia,” she told herself. “Focus.”

But things had changed, something with the engines…a different noise…Then she saw it. Water seeping across the floor, soaking the pages of the album…still just a little but…“Please, please…no.” Spit rose in her mouth as she thought of drowning.

Where was it coming from? Could she stop it? Plug the leak? Oh, God, where was the source? In a frenzy, she spun around, staring at every inch of the flooring, but saw no gaping hole in the hull, no split in the seams of the vessel. There was nothing she could do to stop the inevitable. Whatever the psycho had planned was already happening. Olivia had no choice but to hope beyond hope her plan would thwart the killer’s deadly intentions. She just had to stay the course.

Setting her jaw, she yanked the last pages from the album and dragged each, along with the leather bindings, into the cage with her, where she pulled the plastic from each thick cardboard page. Then, with bloody pictures of Bentz and his family falling onto the wet floor, she rolled one piece of cardboard into a small bat, leaned far through the iron bars again and started whacking at the camera. It took several swipes in midair before she actually connected.

Bam!

The camera didn’t budge.

“Damn it!”

Again!

Nothing.

The camera remained unscathed. Standing. The red light a small malicious and mocking eye staring at her, recording her futile movements. “You son of a bitch,” she said and took another swipe.

Another hit.

Still the camera stood.

“Bastard!”

Now, there was more water. Sloshing over the floor, wet and cold under her feet. She swallowed hard. How long for a boat of this size to sink?

An hour?

Two?

Or less?

She took in a long, calming breath.

Concentrated.

Gave the camera another shot.

Whack! A solid blow, but the camera barely shimmied. Maybe she was going at this all wrong…she eyed the tripod and took stock. Come on Olivia, you can do better than this. Hurry up! You’re running out of time.

The legs of the tripod were bolted into the floor, yes, but they telescoped and, she thought, might be weak at the joints.

Only one way to tell.

Rolling up and using page after page of the album, she beat at the tripod’s closest leg, shaking the contraption, making it wobble as the water and her panic rose. “Die, you bastard,” she muttered, then grabbed the plastic-bound cover. It was stronger, the frame beneath the smooth simulated oxblood leather either plastic or metal or wood.

It didn’t matter which.

She only stopped to listen once, trying to discern where her jailer was, but she couldn’t get a bead on the woman, heard only the groan of the boat as it began to list slightly and the horrifying slosh of water as it rose, splashing her calves.

The boat was going down.

Fight, Olivia! You can do this!

Terrified, she started swinging like crazy, smashing the cover into the tripod’s legs, swinging with all her strength, her fingers clenched over her makeshift weapon.

Whack! Whack! Whack!

All sounds above stopped.

No footsteps. No scrapes of metal on metal. Nothing but the spookiness of the empty, rapidly-filling hull. Olivia’s teeth were already chattering, her fingers numb, her fear at the quietude complete.

Give me strength, she silently prayed. Please.

Then the sound of footsteps. Fast and furious.

Olivia froze, the album cover raised for a final assault, cold water sloshing around her knees. Her pulse was pounding in her brain, her senses heightened as she strained to listen. More footsteps. Her gaze turned to the stairs as the door above opened.

“What the hell?” the woman yelled. “What’s that banging? What’s going on down there?”

Damn!

Suddenly the footsteps were ringing down the steps.

No!

Olivia wasn’t ready.

She threw another blow at the tripod, hitting hard as her attacker descended. Wearing a wet suit, she dropped to the floor of the hold, splashing water.

The camera teetered.

Olivia gave the tripod a final whack!

The legs gave way and the camera flopped off its base and fell into the water.

“Noooo! What the hell is this?” her attacker demanded, an expression of sheer horror on her face. “You miserable bitch, stop it!” She was sloshing through the salt water, trying to reach the camera as it sank.

Olivia fell to her knees, her hands scrabbling outside the cage, trying to reach the camera, water splashing around her face. She held her breath. Scrabbled frantically. Her finger grazed the side of the camera. It floated off. She tried again, sweeping it with a paddling motion toward the bars.

“Hey!” the woman screeched. “No! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?” She lunged through the water to the cage.

Olivia’s fingers curved over the handle and she pulled. The camera hit the bars and she nearly dropped it.

Her attacker sprang forward.

Gulping salt water, Olivia adjusted the camera so that it slipped through the bars to the inside of the cage.

Freezing, she was coughing and choking on the briny seawater, but she didn’t care as she turned the lens on the woman who’d abducted her, the woman glaring at her and standing knee-deep in water.

“Give it back.”

Olivia, seeing the red light was still glowing, kept filming.

“I said, give it back to me right now, you little bitch!”

“Come and get it.” Even if she pulled out a gun, or the Taser again, Olivia wouldn’t give up her prize.

The woman was freaking. “I said…” Her gaze swept the interior of the cage where her pictures were floating in the water. “What? You tore up my album!” Her eyes rounded in pure horror. “No! You couldn’t.” As pages reached the edge of the cage, she reached through, plucking them up. “No…no, this isn’t right! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” She picked up each page and held it high overhead, shaking them off. “Oh God, what’s wrong with you? You can’t…” She spied more of the pages inside the cage, far from her, the pictures scattered, the bloody plastic sheaths cast aside.

“No!” She was fumbling with her keys, desperate to retrieve the album. “No, this is all wrong.”

Olivia just kept on filming.

“Look what you’ve done!” She was frantic, desperate to retrieve what was left of the soggy, disintegrating album. “You screwed everything up! You’re ruining everything!” Her frustration and paranoia mounted and for the first time, it seemed, she realized her actions were being caught on camera.

“Give that back to me now!”

Olivia wasn’t in the mood. Shivering, keeping her tormentor in her viewfinder, she said, “You want it, bitch? Then come and get it.”

“There she is!” the skipper yelled over the cutter’s engines and the rush of wind. They were jetting through the dark water, leaving a white wake behind.

“Oh, shit, she’s listing.”

Bentz squinted into the night, saw the Merry Anne in the powerful beam of the search light.

His heart fell to the floor as he saw the skipper was right; the vessel was leaning hard to one side, sinking fast.

“No,” he whispered, disbelieving. “Oh, God, no!” Against everyone’s protests, he’d donned a wet suit with the intent of boarding, but now the captain was pulling up short. “Get closer!”

“No. We’d better leave this to the Guard,” he said. Already rescuers were trying to board the smaller craft. “Just wait.”

Not a chance.

“Pull up closer,” Bentz insisted.

He thought Montoya would argue. Instead, he turned to Hayes and ordered: “Do it.”

The cutter drew alongside the listing boat. “Really Bentz, you should leave this to the professionals,” Hayes warned. They were less than twenty feet from the sinking Merry Anne. “You’ll only get in the way.”

“I am a professional,” Bentz reminded him as he climbed onto the railing. “And it’s my damned wife.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Hayes lunge, ready to restrain him, but Montoya caught the L.A. detective’s arm. “Let him go.”

Bentz focused on the boat, looming larger as they closed in. Twelve feet away…eight feet…five…At that second, Bentz jumped.

The killer’s plan was falling apart.

As her precious photos swirled on the surface of the rising water, she gathered them, one by one. “No, no, no!” she whined, temporarily forgetting her prisoner. “All my work…years…oh, God, this can’t be happening…my photographs!” She seemed near the brink of tears as water sloshed around her waist and Olivia, fighting cramps and freezing, caught her paranoia on film. Plastic pages floated past, photos curled as they became saturated with water. Olivia’s back was pressed against the bars, the boat tilting at a frightening angle. In a few minutes it would be over. She had to get the damned keys!

Plastic pages floated past.

Olivia thought she heard a noise, a thud. Oh, Jesus, was the boat breaking apart?

The woman heard it as well and she seemed to snap back to reality, noticed again that she was being caught on film.

“Give me back the camera!”

“I said come and get it.” Olivia stood firm, propped by the steel bars, the camera trained on the bitch’s face. Water was splashing above her waist now, weighing her down.

“Damn it!” the woman held the wet photos against her with one hand and struggled with her keys in the other.

“Who are you?” Olivia said. “You might want to tell the viewers your name so you get all the credit that’s due you. Let’s see, is your name…Dawn?” Olivia guessed, remembering that Bentz had once been involved with a cop by that name.

“Stop it.”

“Or are you Bonita…was that it?”

“That bitch? No way!” She snorted in disgust. “Bentz must have mentioned me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Another thud…oh, God, the boat was going down!

“Sure he did. Corrine. Right?”

Olivia shook her head. This woman was Corrine O’Donnell? Of course she’d heard the name before, but she wasn’t going to give this twisted killer the satisfaction. The boat groaned menacingly.

“Corrine. I worked with him. Dated him. Jesus, we slept together and…he loved me. We…we dated twice, almost lived together but then he left me. Both times for Jennifer…” Her voice trailed off. “They all leave, you know. Every one of them but Bentz…I was fool enough to have trusted him twice and he left me alone…all alone…” She shuddered, then, as if realizing she was letting on too much, focused on Olivia again. “I should have used the stun gun on you again!” Another picture passed by, this one of her with Bentz.

She let out a little squeak of denial, then snatched it up. She nearly lost the keys, trying to unlock the gate, “But I wanted you to fight. I wanted ‘RJ’ to see you straining to breathe your last pathetic breath, and now…” She gasped as the keys fell from her fingers, drifting through the bars to the inside of the cage.

Panicked, she tried to stretch her hand into the cage to take hold of them.

Olivia, seeing her chance, shoved the woman back. If she could snatch the keys and unlock the gate, maybe make it to the stairs…

The boat let out a long, low moan and the lights flickered. Olivia’s heart sank. It was now or never!

Taking in a gulp of air, Olivia spotted the fallen keys, then dove down. Her hair and clothes floated around her. On the floor of the cage, the keys glistened enticingly as she reached for them.

To her horror she saw the killer’s hand snake through the bars even further, her index finger catching the ring!

No! Olivia thought, her lungs protesting, her abdomen still cramping. No!

She surfaced at the same moment the killer did and thrust her arms through the rails, her fingers tangling in the woman’s hair and pulling her under.

Her assailant struggled, wrenching back, whipping her head around.

Olivia hung on. If she was going to drown, by God, this woman was going to drown, too! Struggling, fighting, splashing, they fought. Twisting, turning. Olivia’s lungs felt as if they would burst. Oh Lord, help me…

Again she thought she heard something.

But not the boat keening. No…it was different. Shouts?

Footsteps?

Could someone be on the boat? Oh, God, please!

The lights flickered again.

She took in another huge gulp of air mixed with salt water.

Coughing, sputtering, hanging on for dear life, she dragged the killer’s head closer to the bars and swung hard with the camera, connecting with the woman’s skull. Thud! A sickening crunch.

Blood stained the water.

More shouts from above!

“Help,” she screamed. “Help! Down here!”

Corrine grabbed her by the neck and dragged her down. Olivia, gasping, took in air and water as together they sank below the surface.

No! No! No!

Olivia thrashed wildly.

Corrine’s grip tightened. Their eyes met. Corrine was smiling beneath the water, her dark hair and a spreading plume of blood fanning around her, her eyes bright and psychotic. I’ve got you, she said without words. You and your baby are going to die right now!

Olivia’s lungs were on fire.

The world was swirling, swimming. She tried to pry Corrine’s death grip from her throat.

She couldn’t hold on. She needed air!

Feebly, Olivia struck again with the camera, connecting with Corrine’s forehead.

Then the lights went out.

Were those footsteps? Frantic voices? The sound of angels calling?

In the darkness she felt the camera slip from her fingers…felt Corrine’s hands on her throat…felt herself drifting away in the cold and the blackness…

Her abdomen ached and she thought of the baby and of Rick Bentz. I love you, she thought and saw the light, the round white light as if it were in a tunnel.

We’re dying, she thought, floating upward. My baby and I…we’re dying.

The lights went out just as Bentz and two rescuers from the Coast Guard entered the hold. He caught a glimpse of the two women struggling, separated by the horrible cage, Olivia trapped inside, Corrine on the outside. Blood diffusing in the salty water.

“No!” His voice ricocheted through the dark, cavernous hold as he raced down the stairs, his feet splashing in water covering the lower rungs.

“Hey, wait up, man,” one of the divers said, flipping on a flashlight that gave the interior of the listing bolt a weird, macabre look.

Bentz sprang, diving into the water, thrusting himself toward the cage, guided by the eerie light. He was vaguely aware of the others behind him, rescue workers with flashlights and crow bars and floatation devices.

A horrid gash cut across Corrine’s forehead, still oozing blood as she looked up at him. “Bentz,” she said with a ghastly smile. “You son of a bitch. This is all your fault…she’s going to die, her and her baby, because of you.”

“No way,” he growled and pulled her away, flinging her toward one of the divers. “Arrest her!”

“No! You can’t!” Corrine was sputtering, blood coming up with her spittle.

Bentz ignored her, reaching for Olivia, who was drifting away from him, so blue and cold…He pulled Corrine away, then reached for Olivia through the bars. “Livvie!” he cried, holding her face above water. “Olivia!”

The boat let out a long groan, like a whale in death throes. “Let’s move it!” One of the rescue workers switched on a high-intensity under water light, illuminating the hold, showing Olivia floating inside her cage, her hair a golden mane on the waters’ surface.

“We’ve got her, sir!” one of the divers said as he found the keys and unlocked the cage. The other diver had dealt with Corrine, dragging her up the stairs, bracing himself against the wall as the boat sank deeper, shuddering. “Let her go…we’ll take care of it.”

“No!”

“Sir, please!” the order was sharp but Bentz ignored it. Olivia was his wife. She was barely breathing, but alive. He carried her up the stairs and she coughed.

“Olivia?”

She coughed again, a deep, racking cough, and he held her tight while she spewed salt water all over him as the boat shuddered, a horrid cracking sound ripping through it.

“Let’s get out of here now!” The divers pushed them forward, across the steep deck.

“Hold on,” he said, feeling the seams of the vessel, giving way.

“NOW!” With the help of the rescuers, Bentz helped Olivia into the cutter, just as the Merry Anne, with a final horrifying groan, cracked apart, timbers and glass sliding into the sea.

A medic attended to her while another worker wrapped Corrine in blankets in the next berth. She was barely breathing, her eyes fixed. “She’s still got a pulse,” the medic said, though Bentz didn’t care.

He was only concerned about Olivia and the baby…isn’t that what Corrine had said, that she intended to kill both his wife and unborn child?

“Rick?” Olivia whispered as they stripped off her wet clothes and wrapped her in blankets. She was blinking against the bright lights, her hand searching for his, lying on a bunk only six feet from where Corrine lay, handcuffs surrounding her wrists.

“Right here, honey,” he said, his throat thick, his eyes hot from the threat of tears.

“I…I lost the baby.” She looked up at him and swallowed hard. “I was pregnant. I should have told you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He clung to her hand. “You’re all right. That’s what counts.”

“But the baby…”

“There will be others, Olivia,” he said, bending down to kiss her lips. “I promise.”