Jan Burke - Sweet Dreams, Irene

As he opened the locker, his light-hearted manner was suddenly lost. His eyes widened, as if in shock. “Stole your tools?” I asked, looking over his shoulder.

But he just shook his head and rocked back on his heels, gingerly lifting a large, lumpy manila envelope that sat on top of the other contents. In black felt pen, across the front of it, was scrawled, “Dad – Open only in the event of my death or disappearance.”

“Oh God,” he said hoarsely. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, as if trying to will himself not to lose his self-control. He shook his head again, then looked up at me and handed me the envelope. “Hold that for me, please.” I took it from him, and hearing an object slide within it, was almost positive that we had just found the missing knife.

Jack, although obviously still shaken, went to work on the engine. After a few moments, he corrected the problem with the throttle linkage.

“That should do it,” he said, “provided they haven’t done some other damage.”

“You think we’ll be able to make it back in, then?”

Before he could answer, we heard the sound of an approaching powerboat. He gave me a tentative smile and hurried to the companionway. “They may have seen the mast and come over to help.”

The powerboat drew closer. I felt the hair along my neck rise.

“Jack!” I called, but it was too late, he was already on deck.

I heard Malcolm Gannet’s voice call, “Having a little trouble, Mr. Fremont?”

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE, Mr. Fremont,” I heard Gannet say. “It would be inconvenient to shoot you now, but I’m not entirely opposed to the idea.”

Looking desperately around me for a hiding place for the envelope, I moved beneath the ladder and wedged it between the engine cover and the hull.

Above me, I heard the sounds of two men boarding. Gannet had apparently brought help. Thinking over what Murray had told me of him, it made sense – he had said that Gannet couldn’t swim and didn’t know how to sail. I moved away from the engine and sat at the small table near the galley.

“Come on up from there, Miss Kelly,” Gannet called.

“I can’t,” I called back. “I can’t make it up the ladder steps on my own.” It was a lie, but I figured that if I could separate him from his assistant, we’d stand a better chance of evening the odds.

“Don’t let him out of your sight, Stevens,” Gannet said, apparently to the other man. “Mr. Fremont here is resourceful, as you can see by the fact that he has already managed to repair the engine. If he makes so much as a single move, kill him.”

“Look, Mr. Gannet,” the other man said, “we were in a powerboat. We would have caught up to them no matter how fast he fixed his sailboat engine. His engine’s not designed to-”

“ – I don’t need mariner’s lessons at this point,” Gannet said sharply. “That’s why I pay you, Stevens – to mind the details for me. And right now, Mr. Fremont is the detail I’m paying you to mind.”

I heard Gannet move toward the companionway. From the cabin lights, I could see his face as he loomed over the hatch. He wore an orange life jacket over his dark blue sportshirt. His pants were white and neatly creased, and a jaunty white cap hid most of his gray hair. A picture of the gentleman yachtsman, offset only by the fact that he was pointing the barrel of a large gun at me. “Move to the bottom of the ladder, where I can see you better,” he commanded.

I made a show of clumsily getting up and moving toward the ladder.

“Where is it?” he asked.

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play games with me, Miss Kelly. I know exactly what you are up to. You plan to make that boyfriend of yours look like a hero in the police department. Oh, I understand that he needs all the help he can get – he’s something of a burnout case, isn’t he? An officer-involved shooting, assaulting another detective. Lord knows why they let him come back to work.”

“Maybe because he knows how to track down people like you.”

He laughed. “As I said, that’s exactly the plan, isn’t it? You hold on to the damning evidence – supposedly damning evidence – -while Detective Harriman raises suspicions against me. Then, at the properly dramatic moment, you hand him Paul’s confession and the knife. Detective Harriman is back to being the star of the Las Piernas Police Department.”

I couldn’t hide my reaction to the news that Paul had left more than the knife, but fortunately, Gannet mistook it.

“So I’m right. Save us all a great deal of trouble and tell me where it is.”

“What makes you think I have it? Paul hated me.”

“Don’t waste my time! Paul made it quite clear to me that he desired you, to such an extreme that he saved you for himself. Wouldn’t let Devon or Raney have a go at you. The mere mention of your name brought a knowing smile to his lips. And he wore that same smile when I asked him who had the knife and the confession. ‘The woman who caused all the trouble in the first place,’ he said. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he was talking about you. Now, where is it?”

The woman who caused all the trouble. Pandora. The only thing we had in common was that our curiosity had been ill-rewarded. Gannet apparently hadn’t made the connection to the boat’s namesake. He was watching me with growing impatience.

“Don’t you think Frank is going to wonder what has happened to us?” I said, trying to stall. “He has a tail on you, Gannet. You’re the first person he’ll suspect if anything happens to me.”

Gannet laughed. “Thanks to a little electronic eavesdropping, I’ve known exactly what the two of you are up to. That’s how we knew to prepare the Pandora for your little excursion this evening. Let Detective Harriman suspect whatever he wants to suspect. As you know, Miss Kelly, a suspicion is only as good as far as it goes. And the people who are following me believe I am still aboard the Long Shot. They’ll actually provide an alibi for me. Meanwhile, the Pacific makes a magnificent rug, and you and Mr. Fremont are about to be swept under it.”

“Did you get rid of that bloodstained blanket the same way?”

“Ah, Miss Kelly, you’ll never know, will you?”

“We’re not that far offshore. Don’t you worry that some passing traffic from Catalina will see us? Or the Coast Guard?”

Gannet sighed. “You continue to waste my time. I can see you won’t allow us to do this the easy way, Miss Kelly.” He stepped partway down the ladder, so that his head was just below the hatch.

“Don’t touch her!” Jack said angrily.

Gannet laughed. “You’re hardly in any position to be giving orders, skipper. Besides, I don’t plan to rush things. I’ll give you a little something to think about, Miss Kelly, before I spell out any of my plans for you and Mr. Fremont.” He reached into his pocket, never taking his eyes – or the gun – off me. His fist was closed over something. He stood watching me for a moment, and I didn’t like the look of anticipation in his eyes. He moved farther down the ladder, held his fist forward, then shook it. I heard a familiar rattling sound.

Dice.

I felt the sound in my thumb, in my shoulder, in five places on my back. It sounded exactly like fear.

He stepped off the ladder and moved toward me menacingly. My knees weakened and I stepped away from him. He took another step toward me, and sheer panic seized me. Trying to step away, I stumbled and fell backward with a bone-jarring thud. It hurt, but for an awful moment, I was too afraid he would shoot me to worry about anything else.

“You son of a bitch!” Jack was shouting.