As she had broken free, coughing out the water in her throat, her vision had cleared, and from over the edge of the dock she’d dimly seen Jim Heron attacking someone in her defense—
The swallows came back, flapping around and finding their nests, suggesting time was passing.
“Are you okay?” Heron asked her on a mumble, as if he’d been hurt.
Any answer she could have given him was drowned out by his starting to retch. Curling over onto his side, he pushed himself up on bowed arms as his stomach staged a full-on revolt.
Okay, she might have just nearly drowned, but he looked like the one who needed medical intervention. Scrambling around, she prayed that her purse hadn’t gone for a swim as well—
Thank God. It was over by where she’d felt that great push on her body, hiding among some PFDs.
Mels meant to stand up and walk to it; she really did. But the vertical thing didn’t go well, and instead, she had to drag herself across the dock, fits of coughing still grinding her lungs, her head all fuzzy. Except she wasn’t about to give in to all that.
They needed help.
When she got to her purse, she cranked the thing open. Her cell was right in the proper pocket. So was her wallet. And so was her collapsible raincoat—which was going to come in handy in another few minutes when she changed out of her soaked clothes.
Clearly she hadn’t been the target of a robbery.
Crab-legging it back to Heron, she said, “Is there any way you’ll let me nine-one-one this?”
He shook his head until another round of the barfies took over.
Of course he wouldn’t. “So who am I calling?”
She had to repeat the demand twice before the digits started rolling out of his mouth, and she immediately punched them into her phone. When she hit send, she wondered who was going to pick up.
Ringing. Ringing. Ringing—
Distortion, big-time. Like whoever answered was standing next to a jet airplane. Then there was a rustling as if the phone were changing hands…and the roar dissipated somewhat. “Yeah.”
Pause. And then for no good reason, she got a little teary. “Matthias?” When nothing came back at her but that noise, she spoke louder. “Matthias? Matthias!”
He had to shout in return. “Mels? Mels! Are you—”
“I’m with Jim. Heron, that is. Listen, we’ve got some trouble here—”
“What happened—”
“I’m okay, but Jim’s down for the count—”
“Was he shot?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Where are you?”
As she gave their location, she leaned to the side and looked out the boathouse’s open door. There was that laughing child and a mother far across the lawn, at the park with the benches. And no one else.
Hard to know whether that was a good or a bad thing.
“Mels, is it safe to stay where you are?”
Reaching into her purse, she took out her holstered nine-millimeter autoloader. Flicking the strap free, she palmed the weapon, and checked the clip. Fully loaded.
“I’ll make it safe.”
“Listen, Adrian and I need to get a vehicle—we’re on his bike. But we’re coming right away.”
“You just get here as soon as you can. I’ll handle things until then.”
Hanging up, she kept the cell in her left hand, the gun in her right, and went over to Jim.
There was a scent coming off him, and she recognized it as what she’d smelled when that man had approached her—and unless she was reading things wrong, it seemed as if that was what was making him so sick.
Reaching out, she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to leave you.”
No way. He’d saved her twice—which made him an angel in her book.
No matter how harsh he looked.
Heron glanced up, seeming to pull out of the vortex of his nausea. “I’m supposed to protect you.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Because…you are the key to him.”
“Him who?” she whispered.
More throwing up cut him off, but she knew the answer. “Did Matthias send you to me—”
As her phone started ringing, she jerked it up. Unknown number.
No way she was going to hit send and answer the damn thing.
She had enough to worry about right now, thank you very much.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Three hundred and fifty years. Maybe four hundred. Shit…try a thousand.
That was how long it took to get from Caldwell’s rural fringes into downtown in that F-150 truck.
Matthias was ready to peel his own face off when Adrian finally pulled over into a parking space next to a green stretch of park. Not even a second later, the pair of them got out and left their ride like it was a piece of junk at a landfill.
No running, though, in spite of the fact that he was in a panic. Long strides with his cane, but no running. Just him and a buddy, out for a go-nowhere stroll—no BFD.
From behind Mels’s Ray-Bans, he scanned the park. Clear except for a mother and a daughter on the swings.
Just as Mels had described, there was an old Victorian boathouse on the river’s edge, the diamond-paned monolith sitting on the shore like a cedar-shingled hen about to lay an egg. And the closer they got to it, the more Jim’s roommate looked like he wanted to kill someone.
Matthias felt the same way.
The open doorway into the thing was broad, but the interior was as dark as the sky had gotten before those shadows had shown up at the garage. As Matthias’s good eye adjusted, stacks of faded blue and red and yellow rowboats appeared, and so did a wall of orange PFDs. Birds of some sort flew out from the eaves over the half dozen empty slips.
For some reason, he hated the sound of the water smuckering up around the cribs, the sucking and clapping noise predatory.
“Mels?” he said softly. “Mels—”
Down the way, from in between some shrink-wrapped sailboats and what looked like a convention of rudders, she stepped out.
“Oh, shit, Mels…”
Nailing his cane into the dock, Matthias shot forward, and as he came up to her he threw his arms around—
Snapping back, he barked, “You’re wet.”
“I know. Jim’s over—”
“To fuck with him—”
She looked across his shoulder at Adrian and froze, like maybe she recognized him. “Ah, he’s behind there. I don’t know what’s wrong with him—but he really isn’t well.”
The roommate was on it, heading into the space where she’d hidden herself and the other man.
“Who hurt you,” Matthias growled as he ripped off his coat and wrapped her up, trying to get some warmth into her. “It wasn’t Jim, was it—”
“God, no.” She pushed away, but drew the windbreaker close around her. “I…I, ah, slipped and fell into the water, and he came—”
“Were you here alone?”
“I was meeting a source about a story. Some folks don’t want to be seen in public talking to a reporter.” She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “And I’m not really loving this interrogation vibe.”
“Tough.”
“Excuse me.”
“You expect me to believe that you just oops! and went into the river? And how in the hell did Jim know where you were?”
Matter of fact, how had the guy gotten out here?
“Accidents happen, you realize.” Mels jutted forward on her hips. “And as for Heron, why don’t you ask him that question.”
As if on cue, Adrian came out with the guy, holding him off the ground by the waist, Jim’s combats duffing the docks.
Yeah, okay, no one was asking shit of Heron: He was pale as a ghost and lax as a bolt of wet cloth.
“Got to get him somewhere warm and safe,” Adrian muttered, like he was talking to himself.
Matthias nodded over his shoulder. “My hotel room is close by. Let’s bring him there.”