I let go of the rope, falling to the floor of the boat, and sunk my head between my knees.
How much more of this could I take? I tried to breathe, but my lungs were burning and I could only gasp in agony. My hands shook with the bitter cold.
What was I supposed to do now? Call the cops and tell them I’d killed yet another man? Watch them pull the priest’s body up with my knife sticking out of his chest? My stomach clenched in disgust.
Try to explain (again) that it really wasn’t my fault? How would I even justify my presence here—or his?
The whole truth would need to come out, only to be twisted and used against me. Used to destroy me, my mother, my dad’s good name. My heart stung with rage.
I let out a wild cry, banging my fists on the boat’s wet floor and letting the tears fall.
I hated myself, I hated Silver, and I hated what he’d made me.
He was Dr. Frankenstein, and I was his monster—forever tainted by the shedding of so much blood.
My tears mixed with the salt water still dripping from my sodden hair. I shook with anger—in near hypothermia, and in horror. Alana was right. I was always the one looking for the fight. I’d chosen to follow these men that I’d killed. I’d chosen to put myself in a place I shouldn’t be, carrying weapons I shouldn’t have.
Yes, part of me had wanted the priest dead, but not at my own hands. Yes, he had deserved to die by injection or old age in his lonely prison cell, but not by stabbing. Yes, he would never hurt another soul again, but what about me? I still had a soul. Perhaps a dark one—but it was a soul nonetheless.
I had to pull myself together and report this one. The four bodies at the warehouse were different. I had no idea where the damn warehouse even was. I would have looked like a lunatic.
But this body was right in front of me, dangling at the end of a hook like chum in the water. Silver may have made me into an executioner, but I wouldn’t let him take away my integrity. I wouldn’t leave Father Michael’s body here for a poor old fisherman to find.
Plus, I still believed in the justice system, and believed that I would receive a fair trial. Despite the mess of everything, I could rely on a jury of my peers. Well, maybe. As long as my mom employed a high-powered defense team (using up all my dad’s life insurance money meant for my college education); as long as I portrayed myself as sympathetic (which I had no idea how to do); as long as no juror had a secret hatred for any member of my family (not likely, since the polls showed that at least 25 percent of Orange County strongly disapproved of my mother’s tenure as D. A.); and as long as the press stopped calling me a Teen Vigilante (they’d probably come up with something worse).
OK, so maybe I didn’t believe the justice system always worked. But I still needed to call 911. I forced my boots back on and pulled my jacket over me for warmth.
As I stood, a new light caught my eye—there was a car up on the street. No, a van.
A black van—pulling into a parking spot. It stopped in mid-turn as the beams of light landed on me like I was the star performer in his sick show. I couldn’t see him, but he could most certainly see me.
I grabbed my gun and phone and sprinted up the rickety dock to the street. When the van’s tires squealed and it roared away, I changed course to get back to Big Black.
My nerves and icy fingers had me shaking so badly that I could barely get Big Black’s door open. Silver was getting away. Finally, I was in and I screeched out onto the street. I knew the general direction he was going: south. If I could get close enough, I could shoot out his tires and stop him.
I pushed the engine down the empty street until it opened up into a busier area. I barely blinked, waiting and watching for something to show me where the van had gone. Suddenly, about two stoplights away, I saw a black vehicle turn left and disappear behind a building. I blew through two yellow lights and turned in after it down a narrow street, which became a claustrophobically thin alley with nowhere to hide. It seemed like I was on the butt-end of a strip mall, where workers came to throw out the trash and sit on milk crates to smoke. Except no one was around—and probably hadn’t been for a while.
Big Black’s headlights finally lit up the gate at the end of the alley. The sign on it said: “Dead End.”
He must have somehow gotten through this gate and relocked it. I flashed Big Black’s brights on the sliding gate. Either I was delirious or that heavyweight padlock was still swinging.
I thought about doubling back and finding out where the end of the alleyway led, but that was ridiculous. Silver was long gone. A thousand steps ahead of me—a million miles away. He’d outsmarted me again and lured me away from the crime scene. I could just see myself on the witness stand trying to convince everyone that I wasn’t the stupidest girl in the world. Not that my defense team would ever let me testify.
I had to go back to the marina and use the Security Guard of the Year’s phone to call it all in.
“S-s-say what?” the guard stammered as he slammed down his remote control. What was he so irritated about? His stupid, inconsequential, non-life-threatening football game was over.
“I said, can I please use your phone? There’s been a terrible accident.” I looked a mess—soaked and matted hair, smudged eye makeup I couldn’t wipe off, still-sopping clothes, and my poor, innocent, formerly light-brown Diesel ankle boots crusted with salt water and debris.
“What kind of accident?” he asked, grabbing his walkie-talkie.
“A man drowned out there,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I tried to save him, but he was tied up. I need to call the police right away. Please, where’s your phone?”
“Hold on there a minute,” he said with his hand up, suddenly alarmed. “What man? Where?”
“We don’t have time for this.” I didn’t want to explain anything to this guy. He was drunk, and my words could be twisted. “Can we just call the police?”
“Look here, young lady,” he said. “There ain’t no phone around here. This here radio’s all I got. Budget cuts. So you’d better tell me the location so I can report it.”
“Fine,” I said. “B-16.”
He started jabbering into his walkie-talkie, waving me to follow him to the dock and describing me to whoever was on the other end as a juvenile delinquent and possible meth head. Through the static noise and unintelligible war codes they were using, I presumed the police had been notified. The guard was surprisingly sprightly and nimble through the darkness, and we were back to the Ruby Belle in no time. Maybe he would have been able to help me save Father Michael after all.
“Where?” he demanded.
“Right there,” I said, pointing to the rope leading over the stern of the boat.
He climbed aboard, and I followed him up to the edge of no return. We stood there looking down into the dark water. In just a few moments, he would pull on the rope and make the most ghastly discovery of his life. Inch by inch, he pulled at the dead weight. The rope made a sickening grinding noise against the metal of the boat. Either this guy was shockingly strong or Father Michael had already lost most of his blood and limbs to the bottom feeders.
Finally, the end of the rope came into sight. My knees buckled, and my lungs locked up.
Where was the body?
CHAPTER 18
I stared at the rope, incapable of forming a logical thought. All that was left of Father Michael was his shirt.