Jeff Abbott - Black Joint Point

‘I’m playing the what ifs. It’s the worst game in the world. It’s like a terminal game. You second-guess yourself to death.’ She wiped the back of her hand along her mouth. ‘If you’re gonna break up with me, this’d be a real bad time.’

‘Why on earth do you think I’d break up with you?’

‘I’m just saying,’ Lucy said. ‘Don’t you break up with me for at least three months.’

‘I don’t want to break up with you.’

‘Because you love me, right?’ Lucy stared at him. ‘I’m not trying to paint you into a corner, Whit. Trust me. I feel a love vibe from you but you’re not saying it, and if you’re feeling it, this’d be a real good time to let me know.’

‘That I love you? Oh, Christ, Lucy, sure I love you.’

‘You don’t have a future in greeting cards.’

‘I love you, Lucy. I’m not going anywhere.’ There. Said. Not so hard once the words bit into the air.

‘I love you, too, Whit. I do. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. I want you to know that, and this is all going to be all right, isn’t it?’

‘Baby. Yes. It’s okay.’ He got up, kissed her. She kissed shy at first and then she kissed him hard, eagerly, her palms pressing against his back. The phone rang; she broke the kiss.

‘Hell,’ she said. She answered the phone. He could tell by her tone it was a relative or a family friend calling, distant somewhere, who had just heard. Lucy sank into a chair by the phone, started mumbling thanks, a brief explanation of the tragedy. Whit put her tea by her. She patted his hand in thanks, and he went into the study.

The Glenfiddich bottle he’d poured from last night was still there. He picked up the whiskey and noticed, for the first time, the tag entwined with a thin gold ribbon along the bottle’s neck. Handwritten. To celebrate days of old. Stoney.

Whit tucked the bottle back into the bar. Seeing Suzanne Gilbert wasn’t going to be pleasant now, and he decided he might as well get it over with.

I love you, Lucy had said. He felt a little shiver of happiness, of nervousness, of new possibility opening before him.

Lucy stood in the doorway. Pale again, the flush from their kiss gone. ‘The sheriff’s office called while I was getting off the phone with one of Patch’s army buddies. They want me to come in. For questioning.’

The kidnappers slipped over Claudia’s eyes a blindfold, heavy chamois cloth, reeking of boat polish. Hands clamped on her arms and yanked her to her feet, steered her belowdecks. She heard Ben stumbling, gasping next to her.

The air in the cabin lay hot and still against her skin. Hands pushed her to the main salon’s carpet. They tied Claudia’s hands in front of her, the rope laced down to her feet and bound again. The knots were thick as doughnuts. She heard Ben’s wet breathing, like that of a tired, heavy dog.

‘You’re going to be so busted,’ Ben said.

‘Doubtful,’ Danny answered, a decided coldness in his voice that hadn’t been there when he spoke to Claudia. She heard him pacing back and forth near their heads, perhaps inspecting them like prize tarpon.

‘Where’s the journal?’ Danny asked. ‘Where’s the emerald?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ben said.

‘Let me cut the bitch,’ Gar said, his mouth close to Claudia’s ear. ‘Maybe an inch at a time, start with the ring finger.’

‘Why don’t you just calm down?’ Danny said, tension edging his voice. ‘We’re not at that stage quite yet. Search the boat.’

They ransacked Jupiter. Cabinets torn open, leather cushions ripped, mattresses gutted. This went on for at least a half hour, the boat searched from stem to stern.

Claudia pegged their positions from their voices. She had already labeled them: Danny, Redhead (a throaty, giggling tenor), and Gar (a low baritone.) She heard fabric rustle as one of the men dropped to his knees between her and Ben. Then fingertips, gentle, against her shoulder.

‘The wrong place. The wrong time.’ Danny touched her gently. ‘I want to be a better person than that. Truly. I’m sorry for you, miss

…’

‘Leave her alone, asshole! You touch her I’ll kill you!’ Ben screamed.

‘Shut up, brother. I’m not like some people I could name who slaughter the innocent. We are gentlemen here, aren’t we?’

His partners made no answer. Lips smacked to her left, juicy-kissy, and the taste of copper tinged her mouth.

‘Listen, we’ll be expected back within a couple of hours,’ Ben said. ‘We go missing, my brother will have the coast guard looking for us. They’ll hunt you down.’

‘Texas is a long swim away. Let me tell you what you’re going to do,’ Redhead said. His voice held the hard brightness of a game show host. ‘You’re going to get onto the lovely, fancy onboard phone system here, call your brother. He wants to see you again, he’s going to transfer five million dollars into a series of offshore numbered accounts. In the Cayman Islands. The Bahamas. Anguilla. When all that’s done, we’re going to let you and your girl go home to your families. Sound good?’ He laughed.

‘You’re fucking nuts,’ Ben said.

‘Five million’s not a lot to him,’ Danny said. ‘We could get greedy. Take all of it.’

‘Kill you if we wanted,’ Gar said.

‘Don’t be rude,’ Danny said.

‘Stoney doesn’t have a liquid five million just hanging around. Hell, it’s in stocks, funds, real estate.’

‘It’s happening, baby, hap-pa-NING! The redhead, giddy with putting the screws to people.

‘Ben,’ Danny said. ‘It’s easy. I want three things from your brother. What he stole from me, which is a document, a journal. A valuable artifact connected to that journal, which is an emerald. And five million, to compensate me for killing my cousin, who was a nice guy. There. Isn’t that simple?’

‘You’re fucking crazy. My brother doesn’t have what you’re looking for, and he wouldn’t hurt your cousin or anybody else.’

‘Isn’t your brother a little interested in treasure hunting? Hasn’t he filled a goddamn library full of books on it?’

‘Just as a hobby. Jesus.’

‘Hobby. It’s gone past that. Time for Stoney to pay the piper. C’mon.’ Claudia heard Ben yanked to his feet, his shoes scuffing the carpet near her knees. Wetness landed on the back of her neck. Ben’s blood.

‘Gar, put Claudia in the stateroom,’ Danny ordered.

Hands hoisted Claudia up in the air, crushing against her breasts and her hips, hurried her like a battering ram down the small flight of stairs and through the stateroom’s entrance, heaved her onto the torn mattress. She twisted as she fell, rolling, facing the ceiling.

‘Give me a moment, Gar,’ Danny said. The stateroom door closed. But she heard gentle breathing nearby, near her face.

‘Claudia.’ It was Danny. ‘I am truly sorry.’

‘You sound like a reasonable man,’ Claudia lied. ‘Stop this. Let us go. Please.’

‘If you and Ben are innocent in all this, well, then I’m sorry. But how much do you know of Stoney Vaughn’s life?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Day-to-day living. Does Stoney help old ladies across the street or knock them out of his way? Pet dogs or kick them?’

‘I really don’t know him,’ she said.

‘Do you think Stoney could commit murder? Kill a man in cold blood?’

Her throat dried. ‘He’s a respected businessman…’

‘Ah. His money makes him a saint?’ A sarcasm she didn’t like at all tightened his voice.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just as this mistake you’re making doesn’t make you a bad person, Danny. Please. Stop this.’

Long silence again, the only sound the slap of waves against the hull. ‘What’s done is done. Life doesn’t offer erasers.’