What choice did I have at this point but to get out of there, and fast—before it was too late? But if this was Silver’s work, I already knew he wasn’t afraid of putting innocent lives at risk. And what if the person in the water was someone I knew?
I took off toward the cries. Sprinting down the narrow, uneven dock, I nearly fell over some loose ropes. The poor lighting and slipshod care of the dock were dangerous.
In the moonless night, I couldn’t get my bearings. I couldn’t see anything in the water, and the sounds were echoing off the boats in every direction.
Until the light.
Like a spotlight centered just for me, a bright beam shone directly on the side of the old rickety houseboat at Slip B-16.
Its name, Ruby Belle, was painted on the side of the boat.
Time seemed to stand still. Information overload started falling into designated Tetris-like slots: The boat was named after me. It was docked at Silver’s slip. And someone was in the water next to it, calling out for help.
He’d done it again. He wanted to toy with me. And I’d been stupid, impatient, and impetuous enough to walk right into his trap.
“Help,” the voice called again. Whose voice was it? Whose life would I have to save, and whose would I have to take?
I jumped onto the boat—a motorboat with a small cabin—and raised my gun to prevent a surprise attack. The deck floor was wet and slippery as I found the bait in the waters beyond the front hull—the human bait meant for me. My eyes adjusted to find another familiar face, another monster fighting for his life.
Father Michael McMullin. Number three on my Filthy Five list, of course. Without his thick-rimmed 1970s glasses, I almost didn’t recognize the pedophile priest my mom had prosecuted and failed to convict. Still wearing the white collar of God. But now, tied up in the silver chains of Mr. D. Silver. The thin chains tightly wrapped around his neck didn’t look heavy enough to drown him, but the ties binding his wrists together weren’t helping.
“Help!” he cried. “I can’t swim.”
Considering what he’d done to all those children, he deserved to drown. The chain around his neck couldn’t have been more appropriate—several of his victims had been tied up with rosary beads.
As I watched this grown man (who’d never learned the basic skill of treading water but had most definitely mastered the skill of ruining lives) struggle for air, I couldn’t help but marvel at how Silver had outdone himself. If I didn’t save Father Michael, technically it would be me who killed him. I wouldn’t have pulled a trigger, but he would be dead at the bottom of the ocean just the same.
But I wasn’t a killer like Silver—or like Father Michael.
“Help!” he called again, more desperate now.
I scanned the deck for a flotation device, rummaged through the sparse galley, and even scoured the two other boats docked nearby. Everything had been removed, as though pirates had pillaged the place. Of course I knew there was only one pirate behind this sick trap.
I hurried back to Ruby Belle’s bow and found the only thing that might save Father Michael—a short mariner’s rope with hooks at each end. I threw one end out into the water for him to grab, but it wasn’t close enough to him to see in the dark night. Not that he was even looking for it. He was probably so blind without his glasses that I’d have to hit him over the head with it.
I reeled the rope back in and yelled, “I’m throwing you a rope. Grab it!”
He was too out of his mind, flailing about for air.
My choices became abundantly clear. Let him die—saving countless souls, and the justice system hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or attach the rope to the boat, jump in to attach the other end to his body, and pull both of us back into the boat—risking not only my life, but others’ lives in the future.
I put the gun and my cell phone down along with my boots and jacket, hooked the rope to a rod at the tip of the stern, and jumped in. The cold Pacific water shocked my system like an abrasive alarm screaming, “This is a mistake!” My clothes suctioned to me, strangling me like a thousand sheets of icy blankets. Each stroke I took felt like a bad dream where my muscles wouldn’t respond to my brain’s commands.
As soon as I got to him, I hooked the rope onto the chains around his neck (knowing it wouldn’t feel awesome to be strangled as I dragged him) and tried to pull us back in, but his flailing legs made it impossible to even move in the right direction.
I swam around to face him, hoping that when he got a good look at me—even without his bifocals on—he’d calm down. But instead, his eyes bulged and he started screaming. “No, no! Not you.”
“Relax, I’m trying…to…save you!” I screamed, choking on seawater. What the hell was he so scared of? A skinny little teenager trying to save his life? Had Silver warned him that I would hurt him? “I’m going to cut you loose…so you can grab the rope.”
But he couldn’t hear me. He was too busy repeating Hail Marys between gasps for air. I took a huge breath and dipped under the water, away from his splashing blows, to try to get at the knife strapped to my leg. With frozen fingers, suffocating clothes, and collapsing lungs, I almost thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it.
Just as I thought I was doomed, I let go of the rope, gave my pant leg a tug with both hands, and slipped the blade out of its sheath. Air had never tasted so good.
Clenching the knife in one hand and taking the plastic tie binding his wrists in the other, I sliced and his hands were free—with or without cutting some of his skin. I neither knew nor cared.
But as soon as he realized I’d freed him, he didn’t try to swim. He grabbed my head and tried to use my body to stay above water. The moron didn’t understand that he was connected to the boat now, and all he needed to do was grab hold of the new line and pull himself in.
I gasped for air and tried to tell him, but he was past listening, past feeling, past reason. I tried to fight the sting of the ice water burning my lungs with the adrenaline kicking in to save me. I was drowning, I couldn’t break free of him, and I couldn’t fight—he was too strong, and my reflexes were too weak from the numbing cold. Time and again my head went under the pitch-black water, disorienting me, freezing me, threatening to choke me. I knew I only had one choice left.
I gripped my knife and gave him a warning stab in his arm—only meaning to hurt him enough to get free of his grasp. Instead of the cut weakening him, it enraged him even more. He was like a shark incensed at the smell of blood—thrashing and clawing at me with more force than I could handle. He grabbed me by the neck and tried to choke the remaining air out of me. My mind went fuzzy.
I fought back—for precious oxygen, for life—but instead, I inhaled two mouthfuls of foul salt water mixed with blood. I was going to die, right here, at the hands of Father Michael.
No. I would not be another one of this man’s victims. My dad didn’t train me to survive only to have this pathetic sadist drown me.
I renewed my grip on the knife and slashed once as hard as I could, until I felt the blade slide through tissue and hit bone. He went limp.
Oh, crap. Where had I stabbed him that made him give up so fast? I’d only wanted to make him let go of me. But in my choking, frozen, and blinded state, I hadn’t had the senses for precision.
I released the weapon, too weak to even pull it out, and swam as far away from him as I could. It wasn’t until my fingers felt the slivery wooden ladder that I even turned back. But by then, he was already underwater.
Chances were he was dead, but I had to at least keep trying to save him. My soul couldn’t take any more deaths.
I scaled the ladder, shaking in the night wind. I charged to the stern and grabbed the rope, pulling with everything I had left. I heaved until my arms felt like they would come right out of their sockets, with no progress. He was too heavy. Maybe even stuck on something below. If he hadn’t been killed by the knife wound, he had to be dead now after several minutes underwater.