The Goddess Legacy

Chapter 18

Running footsteps sounded from the houseboat deck as Drake and Allie scanned a website while seated at the dining room table. The door burst open and Roland stood in the gap, an alarmed expression on his weathered face and a handheld police scanner in his right hand.

“We have to get out of here. The cops will be here in two minutes,” he warned.

Spencer hurried from the bathroom, his newly darkened skin shining with perspiration. “How did they find us?”

“I don’t know. But they did.”

Allie darted into her bedroom and returned with her bag a moment later. Drake scooped up her tablet and handed it to her, and she dropped it into a zippered compartment before turning to Roland.

“Where to?”

“We can’t drive out of here. There’s only one road, and they’ve already got a car watching it,” Roland said. The scanner hissed with static, and then a voice spoke in Hindi. He listened to the burst of jabber and shook his head. “They’re almost here.”

Allie turned to Drake and Spencer. “What are we going to do?”

“We’ll find another way. How about footpaths?” Spencer asked.

“No, they all terminate at the same point on the road,” Roland said.

“Follow me,” Drake said, and rushed past the Frenchman into the sweltering afternoon sunlight.

Spencer and Allie were close behind, and they quickly eyed the other houseboats; any occupants were inside, out of the heat. Brown water foamed around the hulls in the mild current, and Drake’s eyes settled on a skiff tied to one of the houseboats upstream from them. Its hull was scarred, the paint blistered from the river water, and a few inches of leakage rolled in the bottom of the craft as it tugged at its line.

He pointed at the boat. “That’s our way out.”

Spencer nodded. “How do you want to do this?”

“Only one of us needs to climb aboard and untie it. Then we can get in from here.”

“I’ll go,” Spencer said, and before Drake could say anything, he was loping down the gangplank.

Drake eyed Roland as Spencer made his way onto the neighboring boat. “What about you?”

The Frenchman shrugged. “They aren’t looking for me. I won’t have a problem.”

Allie appeared relieved. “Good. I don’t think that thing could fit four of us.”

The sound of motors from the dirt road drifted to them, and Drake urged Spencer to greater speed with a stage whisper. “Hurry up. They’re almost on top of us.”

Spencer piloted the boat to where Drake and Allie were waiting and lashed the skiff to the railing with the bow line. Allie tossed him her bag and hopped aboard. The small craft rocked crazily, and then Drake was by her side. Spencer cast off the line and pushed the boat as hard as he could into the channel.

“No oars,” he explained as they drifted away.

“Figures,” Allie grumbled, and Drake motioned to their houseboat.

“They must have tracked Carson’s phone somehow,” he said.

“Crap. I should have thought of that,” Spencer said. “Of course. If they suspected I had it…”

“Why didn’t they come sooner?” Allie asked.

“It wasn’t on,” Drake explained. “I powered it up at the morgue.”

Spencer held out his hand. “Let me have it.”

Drake obliged, and Spencer shut it off. “Throw it overboard,” Allie suggested.

“No. We might want to use it later, as a decoy. If I toss it, we lose that option.”

“Are you sure?” Drake asked.

“Waste not…” Spencer felt around in the bow and freed a greasy tarp that stank of fish and rot. “Get down as low as you can. We can’t all stay out of sight, but since I supposedly look like a local, maybe they won’t pay any attention to me.”

Allie made a face and Drake took the tarp from Spencer and pulled it over them. Spencer sat in the stern, holding a fish net and pretending to work on it. From the corner of his eye he watched the houseboat and was rewarded a minute later by the sight of at least twenty uniformed police with submachine guns encircling the boat.

“Looks like we got out just in time,” Spencer said. The boat had drifted sixty yards and was in the middle of the river, moving downstream at a leisurely clip. “What I wouldn’t do for an outboard.”

“Can they see you?” Drake asked.

Spencer’s mouth barely moved. “They’ve got their hands full right now, but yes, it’s just a matter of time till someone looks over.”

“What should we do?”

“Prayer’s never a bad idea.”

“Seriously, Spencer,” Allie chided.

“Not a lot we can do if they decide to open up on us with their guns. Then again, there’s no reason for them to if they think I’m a lone fisherman.”

“So it comes down to luck?” she asked.

“Most things usually do.”

When they were a hundred yards away, Spencer could see that the cops on the boat were obviously agitated, and several of them pointed to the skiff. One of the men had binoculars, and Spencer caught the glint of sunlight reflecting off the lenses as the spyglasses were brought to bear on him. Spencer fingered the net, staring at it with intense concentration as he tied an imaginary knot, and then held it partially up, as though inspecting his work. He could only hope that his disguise would carry the day, and then his heart caught in his throat when he remembered the dye box and supplies in the houseboat garbage.

When the police did a thorough search of the boat, they would find it, and even the dimmest would quickly figure out what he’d done. Sweat pooled beneath his arms as he willed the boat faster, all the time pretending to be engrossed with the net.

The skiff passed a group of locals washing their clothes in the river, seemingly oblivious to the drama playing out upstream, as well as to the questionable cleanliness to be had from the muddy water. Spencer waved at them and returned to his project, hoping he would be dismissed as benign by the police.

Spencer’s fishing act must have been convincing, because as the little boat drifted around a bend and out of sight, no high-velocity bullets blew them to pieces. He remained in character until he was sure they were clear, and then pulled the tarp off Drake and Allie, who were drenched with sweat from just the short time without any breeze.

“Safe to sit up?” Allie asked.

“I wouldn’t. Just in case. But don’t worry — we’re coming up on a bridge. We can get off there if we can climb one of the pontoons.”

The shade of the bridge was a blessing as they passed beneath it. Spencer used his hands to paddle the boat closer to a support, and the bow bumped against brick and concrete and came to a stop. Drake sprang up and tied off the line to a piece of corroding rebar. “Can you manage Allie’s bag?”

“Sure thing,” Spencer said.

Drake clambered up the crumbling face of the support, using the gaps where bricks had worn loose as hand and footholds, and Allie followed him up. As she was nearing the top, she lost her footing and, with a small cry, dropped toward the water below. Drake’s arm snaked out and his hand locked on hers, and he pulled her up to him, muscles straining. He hauled her over the rim and they lay panting beside each other as Spencer climbed the sheer side.

Allie sat up with a look of alarm. “Drake, do you feel that?”

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

She swatted him. “I’m serious. The vibration.”

Spencer’s head popped up at the edge of the platform, and Drake rolled away from Allie, almost knocking himself unconscious on a metal rail. He stared at it as Spencer heaved himself onto the bridge, and then turned to call out a warning. He was interrupted by the deafening klaxon of a train horn as an engine came into view, bearing down on them at high speed.

“Damn,” Drake cried, and pulled Allie to the side. “Hang on to the outside of the bridge. We can’t stay on the tracks — it’s only wide enough for the cars.” He inched around a girder to where he could just maintain a grip on the steel, his toes wedged in a gap. Allie joined him, and Spencer made it with only seconds to spare.

The train roared past, car after car. The bridge rumbled with the weight, the structure shaking like a drunk with the DTs as they held on for dear life, eyes closed against the black dust blowing from between the girders with hurricane force.

Several long minutes later, the last car passed and the train receded down the tracks, leaving them stunned and deafened. Drake helped Allie back onto the platform and Spencer joined them. Soot darkened his face, and his teeth glowed when he grinned.

“That’s one way to get our attention,” he said. “If the cops don’t get us, India will.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Allie said. “Let’s get off this thing and find a road. The police will eventually figure it out, and when they do, we can expect them to pull out all the stops.”

They trudged down the tracks to the far side of the bridge, jumping over holes where the surface had collapsed into the river below. Spencer shared his worry about the hair dye supplies when they were near the bank, and Allie patted his arm.

“Not to worry. I bagged it all and brought it with us when we went to the morgue. Tossed it at the market, so your secret’s safe — for now.”

“That was good thinking,” he conceded. “You might just make a decent field operative yet.”

She glanced at Drake. “I’ve been told not to quit my day job.”

“I never said that. I think you’re amazing,” he protested.

“Amazingly hot and sweaty — and don’t forget grubby from our little jaunt.”

“You look awesome to me.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I take back everything I said about you. Maybe you stand a chance after all.”

“Everything you said?”

“We can talk about it later,” she said softly, the promise in her eyes unmistakable.

“I don’t mean to break up this mutual admiration society, but how do you think they were able to remotely erase Carson’s phone? I know it’s possible to track one, but erase it?” Spencer asked.

Drake’s moment of ebullience quickly faded as he considered the question. “I don’t know. But the real question isn’t how…”

Allie nodded and finished his sentence. “Right. It’s why.”

They plodded along in silence, the ramifications troubling.

Spencer broke the quiet first. “Maybe Reynolds didn’t tell us everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, but all along, it’s felt like we’re being used for… for bait, or something.”

“I told you I didn’t trust him,” Drake said.

“That was the driver, Roland,” Allie reminded him.

“Him either.”

“He kind of saved our asses just now,” Spencer said. “Assuming he didn’t call the cops himself.”

“But why would he do that? What would the motive be?” Allie asked.

Spencer stepped from beneath the overhang of the trestle bridge and into the sun. He looked back at her with a frown.

“I don’t know. But there’s only one way to find out.”