Jeff Abbott - Black Joint Point

Alex hesitated for two seconds. ‘Okay.’ He eased up into a squat by Whit. ‘Get up, you pussy.’ His voice was thick with contempt.

Whit got to both knees, holding his side, lips quivering, fresh blood smearing his broken cheek. Then, slowly, to his feet, his hand under the tail of his shirt, like his side ached.

‘Please… please…’ Whit said, unsteady on his feet, like standing was an ordeal. ‘Please, I’ll show you…’

And then in one swift motion he slashed out at Alex with the little wicked blade.

Claudia had counted on Ben running around the car to finish her, hoping he’d think she’d try to put distance between her and his gun. So instead she rolled under the car. She heard his feet pound around the truck’s back, trying to get a sight on her, seeing if she was hit or running. She saw his feet – tennis shoes bright white in the dark – she let him race past her, peering into the dark of the lot and the loading docks, listening for her running feet and looking for her moving shadow. She rolled out from under the truck as he started to curse, the broken glass crunching under her shoulders. Ben turned and she barreled toward him in a flying tackle. His gun blazed and she felt the devilish whisper of a bullet sear past her head. She slammed hard into him, smashing her forearm into his throat, driving her knee into his groin.

He went down heavy, his head cracking against the pavement. She piled on top of him, one hand yanking his hair back and the other hunting his eyes. He screamed and elbowed her hard, shoved her down onto her back.

It was dark, a dim gleam of lights from the warehouse and the port blocks away, and she saw faint shine on a gun’s barrel – he’d had both guns; he must’ve dropped one when she kicked his feet out from him. The shine was a half foot from her hand and she seized the gun, prayed the safety was off, swung it toward his face and fired.

Missed.

He stumbled to his feet, turning and running for the warehouse. ‘Freeze! Ben!’ He didn’t freeze and she fired twice in the dark. She heard the wet-meat sound of a bullet striking him, heard him sprawl along the steps leading to the warehouse.

She ran to where Ben lay. In the thin light from the shuttered windows she saw the wound in the lower part of his back, blood a black spurt. He breathed in sharp hitches, groaning.

‘Holy God,’ Claudia breathed. ‘Holy God.’

Gunshots inside, and she’d just shot a man. Gooch in there, maybe in trouble. She ran back to her truck, fumbled for the cell phone.

Missed, Whit thought in that split second.

The blade missed and Alex would shoot him before he could stab again. But then Alex’s eyes went wide, shocked, his hand went to his throat and the blood fountained. Alex trying to scream and nothing coming but blood.

Alex’s eyes flashed with rage and fear and horror and he brought the gun back up toward Whit but then he dropped it, the other hand going to his throat to stem the flood. He fell to his knees. Whit grabbed the gun, stood there.

‘How does it feel?’ Whit said, his voice breaking. ‘How does it-’

And he saw Alex’s lips forming the word please.

The organic coppery smell of rupture filled the air, overpowered the scent of gunfire.

‘Gooch?’ Claudia’s voice called.

Whit saw her coming through the still-open front door, her service pistol out, in a firing stance. He tried to speak, as silent as Alex.

Claudia ran to him, seeing Alex bleed out his life, toppling to the floor, grabbing at Whit’s shoes. She gasped at the sight of Stoney’s body.

Whit didn’t let go of the saw; its handle felt burned to his hand.

Claudia tore Alex’s shirt off him, pushing the fabric around his throat, trying to stanch the flow of blood, apply useless pressure, telling him help was on the way.

Whit said, without looking at her, ‘Gooch is here. Help him.’

‘Whit…’ Claudia started.

Whit set Alex’s gun on a table. He dropped the saw on the floor.

‘Let him die, Claudia. Just let him die.’

Alex paled, stared up at him, then through him.

‘I’m going to find Gooch.’ Whit’s voice didn’t sound quite right.

‘Jesus, Whit,’ Claudia said. ‘Jesus.’

Claudia went with Whit to the Coastal Psychics Network on Sunday afternoon, not having slept that night. He had a spare key Lucy had given him two weeks ago and he opened the doors. The business was closed, the psychics mourning at home.

‘I didn’t think straight. Didn’t think about where she’d hide it,’ he said.

‘We don’t have to do this now, Whit,’ Claudia said.

‘She loved this place. And I don’t want it here,’ Whit said. ‘If I’m right. Her office is this way.’

Jean Laffite’s treasure was finally confirmed to consist of twenty thousand dollars’ worth of gold bars, ten thousand in silver bars, and a cache of rare 1820-minted Monteblanco coins worth, in numismatic and historical value, five million dollars. Scattered among the coins and bars in the crates used by Alex and Stoney were fragments of bone and soil from the Gilbert dig site, including a finger bone. The Corpus Christi police kept the treasure in the warehouse under heavy guard while they processed the shooting scene and called the Texas Historical Commission. But the Devil’s Eye was yet to be found.

In her office, Whit glanced at the small foil mobile, the scattered books on ESP and phone marketing, still with their little neon Post-its as bookmarks, worn from her thumbing. On the mantel above her desk were the crystals, amber and yellow and clear and green and red. Arranged just so for the healing powers they emitted. He didn’t feel healed.

‘There,’ he said.

‘Oh, Whit,’ Claudia said. ‘I don’t think so. These are too small.’

‘No. Look,’ he said. He inspected several, then ran his finger along the largest green one. It was the muddy green of a riverbed. He scraped paint off the stone with a thumbnail and the soft green glow came through, the color of time. The seductive green of envy.

‘Jesus. It’s really sort of ugly.’ He handed it to her. ‘Iris Dominguez can tell us if this is it. Or a gemologist. Right now I don’t know where else to look. Hiding it here is classic Lucy. Plain sight. She-’ He stopped.

‘Whit…’

‘I never want to see it again, okay, Claudia?’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Listen. I’m worried about you. We need to talk.’

He stared at her. ‘The way you shot your boyfriend. I meant to say that was well done, what with it being so dark.’

A day later four gemologists said the Devil’s Eye was worthless: the right size, but not the valuable emerald. A nicely done copy, not worth millions, not worth anything at all. At some time – either by a thief in Mexico before Santa Barbara sailed or by Jean Laffite or by Stoney – the Eye was replaced with a worthless hunk of green crystal.

Claudia stopped by his house and told Whit about the report. He was silent. She wondered if he had slept.

‘Whit?’ she said after the silence grew too long.

Finally he said, ‘People will keep looking for it, won’t they?’

‘I suppose they will, after all the news coverage. Dig up Stoney Vaughn’s yard, or the rest of Black Jack Point. David’s mentioned they’ve already chased some folks off Stoney’s land. Thinking he hid some of the treasure there.’

He turned away from her.

‘Whit?’

‘I figured out the person who snooped through my house was Lucy. She knew where my key was, under the fern on the porch. I guess she wanted to know if I had notes on the murders, if there was any way she could be implicated. Or if Stoney was implicated. Whatever might lead back to her.’