Michael Prescott - Deadly Pursuit

What exactly was she afraid of? Did she honestly think Jack would

… kill Steve?

Crazy.

Even if he had taken the knife, so what? Skin-divers routinely carried knives, which came in handy for digging up artifacts found on the sea bottom, cutting free of entangling boat lines or seaweed, even killing a moray eel if one should bite down on a groping hand.

There were many possible reasons why Jack had thought it best to take the knife with him. The intention to commit some irrational act of violence was the least likely explanation.

But if all that was true, why couldn’t she stop shaking?

She feared Jack, that was why. She sensed danger in him.

People made jokes about feminine intuition, but Kirstie had always believed in it. Women were more intuitive than men, better at reading emotions and gauging a person’s inner state. Perhaps biology had equipped members of her sex with some neurological hard wiring that made them more adept at interpreting feelings, relationships, nonverbal communication-the soft, fuzzy parts of life that most men scorned.

There was nothing soft and fuzzy about Jack Dance. Outwardly he was a smiling, affable rogue. But inside…

Inside there was something hard and angry and pitiless, something that hungered for power, reveled in pain.

She had never sensed a similar hardness in her husband. And while ordinarily she would be grateful for that, now it made her afraid.

All right, what to do? She could radio for help. Call the police. But by the time she explained the situation, it might be too late. Besides, she had nothing concrete to report. Her fears could easily be dismissed as the products of a hysterical fantasy, as perhaps they were.

But perhaps not. And if not, then Steve was in danger, might already be under attack, might even be dead, and there was nothing she could do, no way to reach him, no way to help Wait.

The boat Jack said he’d rented. The dinghy.

He’d beached it at the cove.

The cove was at the other end of the island, but Pelican Key was small, the distance short. She could get there in ten minutes-fifteen at the most.

She’d never operated a boat, any kind of boat, but she’d seen Steve do so when he steered the motorboat to shore. It looked simple enough.

And for her own protection she would do what Steve had refused to do. She would take the gun.

The thought banished the last wisps of fog clouding her brain. She ran around to the other side of the bed, knelt, raised the bed skirt, groped eagerly for the pistol.

It wasn’t there.

But it had to be. Steve kept it under the bed, where he could grab it in an emergency, as he’d done last night.

She searched the floor desperately for over a minute before concluding that the gun really was gone.

“Steve changed his mind,” she whispered. “He took it, after all. Thank God.”

But how could he have done that? When she’d spoken with him in the hall, he’d dismissed the idea. And he hadn’t gone back into the bedroom afterward.

Jack had been in here, though. He had changed into his borrowed bathing suit while she and Steve waited in the foyer.

Had he looked beneath the bed for some reason, found the gun, taken it? No, that made no sense. Besides, he couldn’t have concealed the Beretta in the swimsuit. Too bulky.

So where was the goddamn thing?

Well, maybe Steve hadn’t replaced the Beretta in its usual spot after the false alarm last night. Maybe he’d hidden it in a drawer or something. Or packed it this morning for the trip home.

Wherever it was, she would have to go without it. She couldn’t waste precious minutes on an exhaustive search.

Too much time had passed as it was. Nearly a half hour since the boat’s departure. Anything could have happened by now. Anything.

She was running as she headed out the bedroom door.

Jack swam just under the surface, head down, legs flexing and thrusting in a series of scissor kicks. The oval lens of his face mask framed the reef passing slowly below.

Lavender sea fans undulated in the drift and drag of the current, sensuous as swaying palms. Rainbow parrotfish nibbled at coral towers, consuming the living polyps within. A squadron of inch-long neon gobies darted among the colonnades and galleries of coral, streaking under archways and congregating on terraces, then capriciously reversing course to retrace the route they’d traveled.

The clarity of the water was astonishing. Clearer than the air in L.A., Jack thought half seriously.

Mesmerized by the stream of hallucinatory images gliding past, he had almost forgotten what he’d come here to do.

Almost.

But the intention was still there, still beating inside him, hard and steady, like a second pulse.

He focused his attention on Steve, swimming a few yards ahead, fins pedaling at a steady rate of twenty beats per minute. The proper rhythm for a flutter kick, Jack knew. He had taught Steve to swim and dive in these waters many years ago.

The memory stung him, painful as fire coral, but the hurt did not penetrate as deeply as it once would have. He was adjusting to the reality of what he had to do, coming to terms with it, suppressing his last twinges of conscience. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or dismayed at that development.

It didn’t matter either way. His feelings were irrelevant. There was a job to do.

He peeled back the waistband of his swimsuit, touched metal. The knife was still in place.

For the past twenty minutes he had awaited an opportunity to use it. But Steve, swimming steadily, had remained always out of reach.

Not for much longer, though. Jack would have his chance soon. He could feel it.

Steve circled a tall coral tower that broke the surface, forming one tooth in a ridge of jagged dentures above the waterline. Jack followed, breathing through his mouthpiece, aware of the slight tightness in his chest and diaphragm exerted by hydrostatic pressure even here, one foot below the surface.

Below, a moon jelly lazily passed over an alien landscape strewn with greenish brain-coral boulders and staghorn coral trees, scaring grunts and sharpnose puffers out of its path. Battlements of coral fortresses flickered madly with the racing shadows of a school of silver pilchards, like a wild rush of warriors storming the walls.

Steve’s kicking slowed. He pivoted to face Jack and pointed down. Waited for Jack’s nod, then took a breath and dived.

Jack lingered on the surface a moment longer, inhaling and exhaling deeply-four breaths-five-reducing the carbon dioxide in his lungs to extend his time on the bottom.

He needed extra time, extra stamina. Because he was going to do it now. Four fathoms down, or deeper, he would strike.

One thrust of the knife, and Steve’s throat would open up, black blood curling upward like smoke. Even if the wound wasn’t fatal, Steve’s ensuing panic and disorientation would kill him. He would never make his way to the surface in time.

Jack inhaled once more and held his breath. Body arrowed downward, legs briefly thrust into the air, he pulled himself completely under the water with a power stroke, then let his arms trail at his sides as he kicked hard, driving himself lower.

He passed palaces and labyrinths of coral, spires and canyons, archways like stone rainbows, garishly varicolored. Hydrostatic pressure increased markedly in seconds. His sinuses closed up, and his ears hurt; he swallowed several times to equalize the pressure between his Eustachian tubes and the water outside his eardrums.

Steve dropped still lower. Jack struggled to close the gap between them. The damn fins were slowing him down. He was wearing Kirstie’s gear, and her flippers were small and flexible, designed for novices; they lacked the speed and maneuverability afforded by the rigid fins Steve wore.