Jeff Abbott - Black Joint Point

If police were with Stoney, helping him lure in Danny, they’d say, Don’t say anything about her, don’t risk panicking him.

Maybe it was a stupid mistake. Or maybe Stoney hoped Gar would kill you.

She had to get free. Because Danny was going to kill her if Stoney didn’t have this emerald. And if there was one bit of truth to Danny’s story, Stoney might not wish her well either. Claudia pulled herself along the bed, her feet and hands still bound. And the purr of the engines, the full throttle of Miss Catherine told her Danny had abandoned caution and now was in a tear-ass hurry to get to Stoney’s bayside house.

Danny was up on deck, leaving her below, but that might not last long.

She hopped across the floor. The closet door was a slider, one pane covered with a mirror. On the closet floor she found a pair of flip-flops, oversize for her feet. She put them on. The toe Gar broke was purpled and sore and she was about to make it feel worse. With her shoulder, she inched the closet door shut. She eased herself onto the floor, feet toward the mirror.

Now. Either he’ll hear you and come down and shoot you or the engines and the wind will mask the noise. Time to find out. She thought of her mother and her gentle nagging for a moment, her father, so proud of her as a police officer. Her sisters and brothers, all good people that she loved dearly. David on their wedding day, smiling hugely. Whit, crazy, sweet Whit in a loud shirt and windblown hair that he’d forget to smooth down after he put on the judge’s robe. The odd little twist he always put in her heart while knowing he wasn’t really the one for her. Ben. Poor Ben, smiling at her, the nice boy grown into a better man. Probably dead now, thanks to Danny.

She aimed her feet and kicked hard against the mirrored door. It shook, wobbled in its cheap frame.

The engines still thrummed and hummed.

The glass webbed on the third hard smack, cracks in the mirror distorting her reflection. Her foot throbbed. She kicked again. Again.

Two big slivers of mirror fell out of the frame, one a crescent, the other a triangle. She stopped, breathing, listening to the engines. The roar stayed steady.

Now. The trick is to not lose a finger. Or all five.

Claudia turned, wriggled her back up against the bed, grabbed a corner of the cheap bedspread. On it dolphins and mermaids cavorted in tacky glee. But the fabric was thick and she covered her fingers and her palms with it. She took a deep breath, eased back toward the splinters, tried to lift the crescent of mirror. Her covered fingers closed around it. No grip. It shifted and fell from her hands.

Try again. Don’t rush. Sweat dribbled along her ribs.

The third try, she got ahold on the sliver. She steadied with her right hand and slowly, slowly, gripped it until she was sure it wouldn’t cut through the bedspread to her flesh. She leaned to one side, stretching, turning a sharp edge toward the ropes. There. She moved the glass, felt it slice into the meat of the rope.

Not too fast, and don’t dare slip, or you’ll cut your wrists open. That would be hysterical, yes. Lie here on the floor, tied up, bleeding out into the dingy carpet while Danny sailed them home.

She made a little noise in her throat as the first loop in the knot broke under the mirror’s edge.

Slowly. Find the rhythm, feel the rope against you so you don’t cut yourself. She sliced deeper into the big knot fashioned around her hands, forcing herself not to rush.

The knot began to unravel. She steadied her hand. Now the remaining rope was a thick strand right around her wrists, covering the tender lace of veins. Careful.

The deck began to pitch. Danny was in a hard turn, a sudden turn. The crescent slipped in her grip, an edge bit into her skin. She let the fragment go, rolled away from the closet. The deck pitched again, crazily.

Why wouldn’t he steer like a maniac? He is a maniac.

The deck settled, the engines resumed their hum. A little ooze of blood tickled her palm. She pulled on the ropes and her left hand – uncut – came free. She pulled her right hand around to her front, saw a cut in the fleshy part of her palm, blood welling, odd that it didn’t hurt much. Then as feeling crept into her numb hands, it stung like the devil. She unraveled the rope off her hand, grabbed the bedspread, stanched the bleeding. Not bad but worse than it looked.

Claudia cut through the ropes on her feet.

She wobbled as she stood, sensation ebbing back into her feet, arms, hands and the small of her back. She ached everywhere. She bandaged her hand with a T-shirt she found in the bureau, tearing off a sleeve and wrapping the fabric around twice.

She tried the door. Locked. A deadbolt, locked from outside, above the knob. She cussed under her breath, glanced around for a way to smash the door. Although Danny would hear that and come running, gun in hand.

The porthole. Salt and oily stains grimed over the glass. It was secured with four twisting locks. She began to undo them.

So what do you do? Bail out over the side and hope someone picks you up? You don’t even know where in the Gulf you are. Maybe the cops are there at Stoney’s house. Waiting, and you’re running away from a rescue.

But her gut said that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t be far from the bay; he couldn’t have wandered or waited too far away.

She unscrewed the final lock, yanked the panel free from the porthole. Wind and cold spray hit her face. Salt stung her lips. She saw two sailboats in the far distance.

Go. Go.

She prayed Danny Laffite didn’t see her launch herself into the water, didn’t run over her and crush her or chop her into floating mincemeat with the prop. Or didn’t stop to shoot her five times in the back as she tried to swim away. But he’d shoot her for sure, she thought, when he found her untied. Maybe she could take him, surprise him when he opened the door. But maybe not. Danny had the gun, his muscles weren’t aching from having been tied for hours, and he had the strength of the crazy on his side. There were other boats on the water. Someone would see her, God, yes. And if she waited… she’d lost one chance before, aboard Jupiter. He could stop the boat at any time to come fetch her and she wouldn’t be able to fight back. Seize the moment, she told herself.

She turned and dug through the closet. No life preserver jacket. Nothing flotational. And no flares. Nothing but musty clothing. She found a big pair of blue jeans and remembered a news story about a young American girl who survived hours in the sea after a ferry in the Philippines capsized and sank, by fashioning her blue jeans into a crude float. Fine. She pulled on the jeans over her shorts. She saw a bright red pillow on the bed, small. Easy to see. Claudia grabbed it, shoved it under her T-shirt.

Claudia pulled herself through the porthole. She threw herself into the deep green, pushing away from the boat with all the strength left in her legs.

She hit the water like a stone wall. Air smashed out of her lungs, water closed over her head like six feet of packed dirt. The roar of Miss Catherine slicing through the waves sounded above her, churning, like gods rolling dice.

She kicked down, down, down into the endless green. Stay down. Don’t let him have seen you. Please God, give me a chance.

She felt the Gulf close its cold fist around her, and when she could no longer hold her breath, Claudia kicked hard again and broke the surface, a wave roiling into her chest, knocking her back down. She emerged; salt burning her hand, her face, her eyes. She coughed, keeping her head clear, turned toward the widening wake.

Miss Catherine roared away from her, Danny standing on the flying bridge, steering through the crests. Not stopping, not turning back. He hadn’t seen her.