P. Alderman - A Killing Tide

Sonofabitch! Sykes had been playing him all along. And Kaz was at the police station. Surely Sykes wouldn't try anything in front of the other cops—he wouldn't be that brazen. But who knew how many of them were working with him?

Racing across the parking lot to his car, he used his cell phone to dial the station. Ivar answered Lucy's phone. "Where is she?" Michael shouted.

"In the interrogation room with Gary," Ivar answered. "Why?"

"No time to explain. Tell Kaz not to move. I'll be right there."

"Kaz isn't here." Ivar sounded confused.

Michael skidded to a stop at the car door, one hand in his pocket, reaching for his keys. Zeke barked at him from inside the car, jumping up and down. " What ?"

"Yeah, she left about half an hour ago."

"Fuck! Where was she headed?"

"She said something to Lucy about heading to the mooring basin and then to the tavern."

"Is Sykes there?" Michael asked, terror's grip making it hard for him to form the words.

"Hold on." Ivar put the phone down for a few seconds, then came back online. "He must've gone home already, I don't see him in his office."

"Keep me posted." Michael disconnected and yanked open the car door. He started to toss the cell phone on the front seat when he saw that he had a message. Why hadn't it come through? Because he'd been in the basement at the time, dammit. No coverage. He started the car and pulled on his and Zeke's seatbelts, listening to the message from Kaz. Then checked the time stamp.

#

Kaz cut the Kasmira B's running lights and stayed back so that Karl wouldn't notice her in the approaching darkness. With the wind picking up and conditions becoming choppier, she found it hard to keep him in sight. If he crossed the river bar faster than she did, or if she made any navigational mistakes, she could easily lose him on the ocean side. Then her only option would be to head for the location he'd given out over the radio the day before and pray that she was right.

Once out of the Redemption, she'd driven along Marine Drive, keeping Karl's small skiff in sight as he took it upriver to the mooring basin. By the time she'd gotten there and parked, he was fueling up at the pumps and hadn't seen her sneak down the docks and onto her own boat.

The Kasmira B bounced harder than usual, sending alarm skittering along her nerves. The weather report coming across the marine channel wasn't good—a storm surge of up to fifteen feet was predicted just offshore, with more than thirty feet out at sea. Add to that winds up to thirty knots, and it would be a hell coming back across.

If she made it at all.

Being caught out for the night wasn't an option. Whatever she learned out here she had to be able to communicate back to Lucy—she didn't believe Gary would survive until morning. And that scared her far more than crossing the river bar under the wrong conditions.

Keeping closer to shore, she paralleled Karl, staying as far back as she dared off his port stern. Only half an hour after turning south, he cut his engines to an idle and ran alongside a buoy. His location matched the position he'd given out on the radio yesterday. He'd employed the fishermen's habit of broadcasting false locations, but his intent all along had been to inform the drug suppliers which crab pots he'd used as the drop location. She had to admit, it was a clever idea. Someone had once said that the best place to hide something valuable was right in plain sight. This was just a fisherman's variation on that theme.

Karl's running lights provided just enough illumination so that with binoculars, she could watch him pull the crab pot out of the water, open it up, take out a package, and then drop in the plastic wrapped package he'd taken from the office back. He lowered the cage back into the water.

Grabbing a pen and paper, Kaz noted the longitude and latitude, as evidence for later. Karl had brought himself down by following every ship captain's habit—writing down everything in the ship's log. With her notes as corroboration, they had him. Now all she had to do was follow him back to port and then on to his meeting with his in-town contact.

"Gotcha," she murmured out loud. She was one giant step closer to proving Gary's innocence.

"No," the voice behind her said. "We've got you."

~~~~

Chapter 26

As Michael's car skidded onto the wharf, his cell phone warbled. He picked it up and flipped it open. "Talk."

"I found Lucy," Ivar said. "Knocked out cold in the men's room. Gary's escaped."

Michael started swearing. "Were you able to revive her?"

"Yeah, she says Kaz planned to observe the hand-off of the cash at the Redemption and then follow Karl Svensen from there."

"Follow him where?"

"That's not clear, but I'd bet out on the water somewhere. Makes sense."

Michael got out of the car and searched the boats on the docks below. "Both boats are gone, Svensen's and Kaz's. Goddammit ! What did she think she was doing, taking this on by herself?"

"My guess is she didn't have a choice. They both were at the mercy of the tides," Ivar pointed out.

He was right, but that didn't make Michael's heart pound any slower. "Yeah, okay. Listen to me. It's Sykes."

There was momentary silence on the other end.

"Sykes is behind this, dammit. You and Lucy notify the Coast Guard, have them put a rescue boat out on the water."

"You're wrong, man. Lucy says it's Clint Jackson. And Steve called from the Redemption just now, worried about Kaz. He didn't say a thing about Sykes."

Michael told him about the DNA samples. "I don't know whether Jackson is in on it, and I don't know what Steve knows, but Sykes is the killer." He could hear Lucy shouting in the background. "I can see Bjorn from here—I'll convince him to take me out. Let's just hope to hell we're fast enough. Sykes' Lincoln Navigator is parked a block from here, locked up tight."

He threw the phone onto the car seat and locked the door, leaving Zeke whining unhappily inside with the windows cracked for air. He cleared the ramp down to Bjorn's trawler in one leap.

#

Kaz stared at Jim Sykes, who stood on the top step of the stairs leading to the engine room, pointing a large, black handgun at her. His smile was humorless. "You Jorgensens. You never did know when to mind your own business."

"You're in on this?" she asked stupidly. "Jim, why ?"

His tone turned derisive. "You think a police chief's salary in a Podunk town like Astoria will ever get me where I want to go? Money is power, Kaz. You know that from all those consulting gigs you had."

"But, Jim. Murder?"

He shrugged, seemingly unmoved. "Ken would've blabbed, sooner or later. I had to shut him up. All my life, I've done what had to be done."

Kaz shivered. "It was you who shot at me out by the Elk Preserve."

Sykes chuckled. "Couldn't have you running around proving Gary's innocence, now could I? He was a necessary part of my plan—my scapegoat." Sykes leaned toward her, his expression coldly satisfied. "It gave me great pleasure to frame him. I've hated both of you ever since we were kids. The great fucking Jorgensen twins—smart, popular, and with parents that every kid envied. That night your parents drowned? I goddamn cheered. The only bad part was that you survived." He nodded and leaned back, pleased with the effect his words had on her. "Now where's the fucking money?"

Kaz cleared her throat, hoping her voice would be steady. "It's gone—you'll never get it back. Gary used it to pay off Bobby's medical bills."

Rage flashed across his face. "Well, now," he said softly. "I was going to spare you by knocking you out, but I guess after hearing that bit of news, I'll just let you burn alive. In fact, killing both of you is going to be a real pleasure."