Robert Walker - Grave Instinct

“ Ahhh, yeah, I'm getting a posse together right now.”

“ Good… good. There's more danger than you realize. Let me set the stage for you.”

Real static obliterated anything Sorrento might have said. He turned to Jessica. “He's on his way out there. Claims to have gotten help.”

“ Claims or did?”

“ I'm not sure.”

The cutter made its way deeper into the black shaft of the canal. 7.00 P.M.

Inside the expansive house on Grand Isle, Mrs. Lara Swantor and her newfound lover, James Harris, drank wine and played with massive bubbles in the large, oval bath. They played with one another as well, fondling and kissing, when the phone rang. “Now, who knows I'm here? Who could be calling?” she slurred her words while glancing at a clock that read 7 P.M. Outside the storm shook the house, and its intensity frightened Lara, but James, a psychiatrist, said the best way to overcome such a fear was to enjoy oneself in the midst of adversity. It sounded good, but what he really meant was that he wanted to bathe with her.

Besides, the latest newscasts had the brunt of the hurricane heading toward Mobile now. All the same, each lightning strike shook her to the bones. Only James's attentions took her mind off the storm.

When the phone rang, James had said, “Let the machine get it,” as he held on to her, caressing her in the way she could not resist.

“ All right… good thinking,” she replied. “Hmmm… baby.”

She heard the sound of someone she didn't recognize leaving a message she could not make out. “What did the man say?” she asked James who, being younger, must surely have better hearing, she thought.

“ Didn't catch it. Likely a neighbor worried about the storm.”

“ Old Mrs. Philbin, I suppose.”

They continued with their bathing of one another. A second time the phone rang, and James got up and walked naked and bubbly to the phone, but it quit ringing-no message this time. He lifted it off the hook and put an end to it.

“ Get back in here, you!” she called out to him.

“ On my way!” he called back. “Just going to get us another bottle of wine from the pantry. Are you hungry?”

Even in the darkness and the storm, Jervis Swantor had easily maneuvered his yacht, equipped with the best radar and sonar instruments in the land, through the treacherous canal. He had more trouble locating and docking the yacht in the boathouse than he had with the river and the canal. Down below, he'd re-chained Kenyon in his cabin, placing his tools just out of the man's reach. Now all he had to do was find Lara, whose small transport craft was tied to the dock. Once he found her, he would introduce her to his new friends Grant and Philip.

Knowing that the authorities were extremely close, and that they likely already knew of his final destination, he must act fast. Once the boat was secured, he climbed off and onto the boathouse landing. From there, he could see the house. A light was on in the master bedroom. From all appearances, Lara was home despite her ignoring the phone. Any servants would have gotten off the island by nightfall, especially with such a storm brewing.

Fighting the driving rain, Swantor made his way up the long flight of cedar steps to the house, lit by the occasional lightning bolt. Soaked, wild-eyed, he stared up at the bedroom light again. Some shadow moved across the room. Lara, he decided, unable to sleep. She had always hated storms.

Swantor meant to make his way around toward the back of the house. He had kept a key to the rear door.

“ Now, sweetheart, time for judgment day.”

Her dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Opal, began barking from her doghouse. He went to the dog and strangled it with his bare hands, silencing it. “Never liked that dog,” he muttered to the corpse.

Sheriff Danby Potter, fifty-nine, approached the house via the river directly across from the mainland, knowing the dock area well. His uniform covered by a yellow rain slicker, he warmed his insides with the moonshine liquor he sipped at. From what he had gathered over the phone with Sorrento, it appeared that Dr. Jervis Swantor was the butcher that the FBI was in search of. He knew Swantor on sight, and he knew the man's boat. He didn't need any pimply-faced young squirt of an FBI cop telling him how to proceed, and when he saw that there was no other boat at Mrs. Swantor's place other than her own, he knew he'd arrived in time.

He'd tried to telephone her from his cell phone, but he'd been unable to get through, getting a busy signal instead. He had pictured the worse, that Swantor was already inside the house, that he'd taken the receiver off the hook. This worried Potter.

He put in beside Mrs. Swantor's transport. He'd seen her car parked on the mainland at the marina. Grand Isle was a no-cars-allowed island, serviced by water boats for mail delivery and medical emergencies, and sometimes a medevac chopper was called in from upstate. He wanted to believe that she had taken the phone off the hook herself, perhaps wanting to get some sleep. If so, she'd not gotten the warning from the FBI people. He hoped to find her simply asleep with the phone off the hook.

Potter had heard the rumors of just how nasty her divorce from Swantor had gone, and that she was in a bad way. He now tied his launch to the wharf, got out onto the slippery deck and hitched up his britches and gun belt. As he did so, he thought he saw movement in the shadows up at the house, just going around back, followed by barking and then silence. He turned and secured his boat better against the wind and storm. It was a night no one should be out in, he told himself, but then he was the only law for a good fifty miles. He stared up at the house and studied it for any further sign of movement and checked his watch which read 7:05 P.M.

Must've been the dog, he told himself. Then he heard something odd on the wind, something like muffled shouting. Was it coming down from the house? No, his ear told him it was emanating from the boathouse.

He stepped inside to find the enormous yacht the Coast Guard was looking for. Dr. Swantor is here!

He slipped back out into the rain and telephoned the house again. Still no answer.

Again he heard a voice coming from the interior of the yacht inside the boathouse. It sounded as if someone were hurt somewhere in the bowels of the big boat. He wondered if the sounds might not be Swantor's hostage, the woman he'd heard about, abducted in New Orleans.

Potter climbed aboard, and made his way into the depths of the luxurious boat when his cellular phone rang, his emergency line. He cursed it for having frightened him, and he shut it down. No one could have a greater emergency than he had right here on his hands, he told himself.

Naked, James Harris had kept going down the hallway, despite Lara's objections for him to not leave her alone in the storm. He shouted back over his shoulder that he was hungry, and that they needed more wine, and that she had to confront her fears. He dripped — water and bubbles the length of the hallway and down the stairs and out into the kitchen. Stark naked, he began rifling the refrigerator when he thought he heard a key turning in a lock.

Looking across the darkened room and through a window on the back porch, James saw someone letting himself in. James grabbed hold of a bottle of wine and positioned himself crouching behind the kitchen cabinets where he felt himself shaking, fearful.

As he held that frozen pose, James Harris heard the door open and close, heard the footsteps as they neared him, and watched, unable to move or act, as the large man wandered through the kitchen and out to the stairwell, going up, going toward Lara. James didn't recognize the man but guessed that it was the ex. Lara had complained that he had harassed her throughout the divorce proceedings, and here he was, the bastard.