Coldwater Revenge, James Ross [books for 9th graders txt] 📗

at someone now, and it was clear that that they were screaming back.

“He won’t kill you,” Susan whispered. “He’s a scientist, not a murderer.”

“Susan! His finger was squeezing the goddamn trigger when his phone rang!”

“He’s not like that. You don’t understand.”

“No, you don’t. Frankie would have beat Billy to a pulp… not poisoned and drowned him.” He spoke to the window, to the snow that had stopped falling and the trees that no longer swayed. “That peaceful ‘scientist’ out there killed your brother.”

Susan said nothing.

“Or you did.”

* * *

Darkness fell. He could no longer see the lake, only the trees, and above them the stars. There was nothing left to say. He waited for an answer and strained to hear it when it came.

“He broke one of the packages,” Susan whispered. “It was an accident.”

Tom squeezed his eyes and locked onto her voice.

“Suliman was bringing one of his colleagues – a doctor. But Joe showed up first on his way to work and Billy chased him away. Joe called me from the patrol car and said that if I didn’t get Billy to the hospital, he would come back and drag him there himself.”

Susan’s voice drifted behind his back. He closed his eyes and locked onto it.

“Suliman told me to get Billy to the island and that he’d meet me there. By then, Billy was hallucinating. I got him down to the boat and wrapped him in that sleeping bag.”

“With two cement blocks in the bottom?” He almost snorted, but he kept his voice low, whisper for whisper.

“He was delirious,” said Susan. “The transom on that boat is only knee-high. I had to make sure he didn’t fall overboard.”

“But he did.”

“I know.” Her voice cracked and all but disappeared. “We were almost through the cove when the patrol boat came out from the marina. I turned off the lights so your brother wouldn’t see us. He started fanning a spotlight, so I shut off the engine and let the boat drift.”

He let the silence swell and then prompted, “Go on.”

“As soon as I shut off the engine, Billy went berserk, screaming and flopping all over the place. The patrol boat turned and came straight toward the noise. I had to hold Billy’s head over the side to muffle the sound.”

“Go on,” he whispered.

“That’s how he went over.”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s how he went over? ’”

“When the patrol boat came alongside, it threw up a wake. We tipped in it. Billy overbalanced and I couldn’t hold onto him. He fell over.”

It was Tom’s turn to be silent, his brain too fried and his body too numb to evaluate this last iteration. Whether it was even partly true didn’t really matter. Hassad was going to kill him just as soon as he came back to the room.

“You haven’t answered my question.” Tom’s voice recovered its volume and urgency. “What do you think is going to happen here next? What are your instincts screaming at you right now? Not your heart. Your gut.”

No answer.

“Susan! That non-overlapping immune system out there is going to come back in here and slaughter me! Then he’s going to do whatever he’s got planned for what’s on that boat—which I doubt is world peace, if he had to kill me to do it.”

Seconds passed. Tom could no longer hear Hassad’s voice. Whatever the argument had been, it was over. Footsteps approached the back of his chair. He braced for the blow or the coup de gras, or whatever was going to come next… and last.

Pale fingers tore at the tape over his wrists. Gossamer hair swept his chest.

“Hurry,” he said.

Susan clawed the tape with her nails and then with her teeth.

“Find a knife.”

But as he spoke, Hassad shouted. Footsteps pounded across the floor. Hassad’s pistol slammed against the side of Susan’s head. He lifted the phone in his other hand and screamed into it what was unmistakably a curse. The arm with the gun straightened in the direction of Susan’s fall. Tom could see red welling through wheat, but he could not see Hassad. Susan moved her head from side to side, mouthing, but not speaking. She struggled to her feet beyond Tom’s line of vision. Hassad cursed again – at Susan, into the phone, at himself… The blast of his gun, contained and amplified by glass and concrete, was deafening.

Tom had no thoughts or sensations. He did not know if he had been shot… only that he was not yet dead. Cogito ergo sum. Footsteps hurried from the room and then returned. A thin cold blade penetrated the tape and skin at his wrist. The hand holding the blade carved backwards and then moved to the other wrist and ankles in quick order. Blood oozed through severed flesh, cloth and bond.

“Move!” Hassad hissed.

Tom pitched to the floor, hands slipping in a pool of blood. Hassad yanked him to his feet. A litany of foreign curses spewed from his throat. On the path leading to the bluff, Tom pitched forward onto his hands and knees. Hassad put a boot to his ribs.

Tom fell again on the steps and on the seawall. The Dobermans barked in frenzy at the smell of blood. Hassad shoved him into the pilot’s seat, cast off the lines and braced himself against the cuddy. The dogs jumped into the boat.

Dazed and exhausted, each breathe was an agony. Susan was surely dead and Hassad would just as surely kill him once they got to wherever he wanted Tom to pilot the boat.

“Move!” Hassad shouted. His gun traced a palsied ellipse in front of Tom’s face.

The wind had died just as Susan had predicted, and the swells at the mouth of the inlet had fallen to less than a foot. There was no moon or stars. Grey clouds covered the sky to the horizon.

“North,” Hassad ordered.

Tom turned the wheel and eased out of the cove.

“Faster!”

Tom opened the throttle. The police cruiser surged and began to skim over the water. Hassad shouted instructions… curses. Tom was