Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
GABE
“Any ideas where they’re heading?” Gabe asked.
Knute shook his head. “Petyr did say something about a boat while we were waiting for you.”
“That could be anywhere around here!” Panic was a rising tide that took a great deal of effort to push back down.
Panic would not help them get Elton back safe and sound.
“I need to think. There’s the marina, but he’d have to have a key for the gate so I think we can rule that out.
” Gabe frowned, trying to calm down and think.
“Unless… fuck. Unless he does have a key and one of those other sailboats belongs to him. Casey never could figure out who they all belonged to.”
“We need to get to Elton,” Knute said. “Not stand here with our thumbs up our butts, wondering whether or not Petyr has access to the marina.”
“I know this. I do, no one knows this more than I do—and you, of course. But seriously, Knute. If Petyr does have access to the marina, it would explain so much.”
If John Stevens had been in Petyr’s pocket as well and had been planning on getting out, and somehow Mikal found out? Gabe would bet his right nut that he was the one who’d had Peter killed and left as a message for his father.
“Gabriel.” Knute wasn’t yelling but his voice was raised. “We do not have the time for this.”
“Yes. Okay.”
Gabe hadn’t been back to the marina since Casey moved his things off The Barbara, but he knew where the spare gate key was kept.
“One sec.” Racing into the kitchen, Gabe grabbed the key from the specific hook Casey had installed for that very purpose and shoved it into his pocket. Something touched his ankle and he almost screamed, but it was merely Keith-the-cat emerging from wherever she’d been.
“Merow.”
“There you are!” Gabe snatched his cat up and gave her a tight squeeze, receiving a complaint in return for his effort.
Quickly, he dumped some dry kibble in her bowl, ran upstairs and grabbed his cell phone from the bedroom, then went to find Knute waiting impatiently at the bottom of the porch steps.
“Marina?” Gabe asked, pulling the door shut.
“Best place to try first. If not there, isn’t there a public dock at the fort?”
“I think so, but”—he tossed Knute the side-eye—“I’m still the new guy around here.”
Riddle Bay Marina was a fifteen-minute drive from the house on a normal day.
Knute managed to cut it to ten without causing bodily harm or property damage.
With Knute driving, Gabe worked to actively avoid deep-diving worst-case scenarios.
Mikal could have killed them all at the house.
He didn’t. He could’ve taken care of Knute and Elton while Gabe was in the shower. He hadn’t. They were all still alive.
The only reason Gabe could come up with for this was Mikal Petyr’s unhealthy fascination with his mother.
If that was the case, and Gabe didn’t think he was wrong, Elton had a chance.
Perhaps Mikal didn’t want to kill someone who’d meant something to Heidi Karne.
After all, he’d basically admitted to killing Roy Wilson with a golf club.
If he wanted any of them dead, they’d have been dead by now.
Cruising five miles over the speed limit, they spotted the Honda at the same time, both of them shouting Elton’s name at the sight of it.
The car was parked cattywampus in the small lot, and at first look, no one was inside.
Knute veered the Charger into Norskland’s parking lot, stopped the engine, and hastily climbed out.
“Whoa, hold your horses. Aren’t you supposed to be the levelheaded one?”
“Fuck levelheadedness.”
“While I appreciate the sentiment, Knute, now is not the time to abandon the levelheaded ship. And I cannot believe I’m the one who has to say this.”
Miracles do happen, Chance.
They met at the back of the Charger to stand shoulder to shoulder and stare across the street at the marina. Gabe had enough time to again bemoan his lack of sunglasses.
“I don’t see Elton or Petyr,” Knute muttered, squinting against the noon sunshine.
“Me neither. Do we call Klay?”
“Too much time.”
“Then we’re going in?”
“We are,” Knute said.
Together, they jogged across the road. Gabe glanced into the Honda on the way past, making sure Elton wasn’t inside doing a crossword. At the gate, nerves got the better of him. He dropped the key in the gravel once before managing to insert it into the lock. Knute huffed at him.
“I’ve got this.” Gate opened, they hurried down the pier.
The Barbara was still tied up to the end of the dock. The Golden Ticket, of course, had been towed for salvage, and Stevens’s boat had burned to the waterline. That left two.
“Which one?” Knute asked.
“Dunno.”
Gabe’s phone started up again, Smooth Operator breaking the relative peace.
“Fuck.” He dragged the thing out of his back pocket and aggressively silenced it.
He was briefly tempted to toss it into the bay but restrained himself.
Hopefully Mikal hadn’t heard it over the creak of the sailboats and the snap of lines against the masts.
Please, let just one thing go the way they needed it to.
“The one on the left up closest to The Barbara seems to be moving in the water more than the others,” Knute pointed out.
Gabe looked up the pier. Knute was right; that last boat was rocking a bit.
“What do you think?” Gabe asked, deferring to the ex-cop.
A shadow fell over them, and Gabe looked up. A big, fluffy cloud momentarily blocked the sun.
“We probably should’ve at least called the sheriff,” Gabe muttered.
“Too late now.”
Gabe was about to point out that it actually wasn’t too late, that he had his cell phone in his pocket. But a lone figure appeared to rise from the sailboat’s cabin. Limned by the sun, Mikal Petyr stood on the deck, keeping an eye on their approach.
“Where’s Elton?!” Knute yelled, starting to walk faster.
Gabe grabbed at his shoulder. “Hold up.”
Without answering Knute, Petyr bent to unhook one line and then another, tossing them both onto the deck. Gabe and Knute took another few steps closer.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Gabe said.
Knute merely grunted.
“This is about when I’d like the Avengers or whatever heroes are free to repel from helicopters and do all the saving,” Gabe whispered. “Where the fuck is Elton?”
Without any warning, Knute started to run—surprisingly fast for a retired cop and generally elderly man.
Mikal yelled something, his weapon appearing in his hand, and he squeezed the trigger.
The shot rang out over the bay, and Knute went down like a proverbial sack of potatoes.
The sound of his body hitting the pier was something Gabe wasn’t going to forget for a long time.
“Goddammit, Knute!”
Gabe’s phone vibrated. “Not the time, whoever you are,” he muttered, racing to where Knute was sprawled on his back. He had one hand clasped over a gunshot wound to his shoulder. At least, Gabe hoped it was his shoulder.
He also heard the rumble of an outboard motor and looked over to see The Sea Witch gliding away from the dock.
“Fucking fuck!”
“Shit, shit, shit. Hold on, Knute. Please.”
“Elton,” Knute whispered. “Go after him.”
“If I leave you to die here, Elton will kill me.” Gabe looked around for something but ended up ripping his shirt off and packing it against the wound.
At this rate, he was going to have to replace his entire wardrobe and Casey’s too.
“Fucking fuckery,” he growled, getting his phone out of his pocket.
Gabe didn’t check to see who’d been trying to reach him earlier. He pressed the sodden shirt against the older man’s upper chest with one hand and punched out 9-1-1 with the index finger of the other.
“Fucking hurts,” Knute wheezed.
At least he was still conscious and able to speak, and the bleeding seemed to be under control. Or didn’t seem to be getting any worse.
“Hello, yes, I need an ambulance and whatever the fuck else at Riddle Bay Marina. Gunshot wound. It wasn’t me who did it.
The shooter fled in a sailboat, The Sea Witch, and took Elton Cox with him.
I’m not staying on the line. I need to stop this bleeding.
” He ended the call and set his phone to the side. “That should do it.”
“Gabe.” His name was barely a whisper.
“What?”
“Tell Elton—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, you are not dying from this, do you hear me? Not dying. No fucking way. You just save whatever it is you have to say for when Elton comes to visit you in the hospital. Maybe, if you’re very lucky, he’ll move into your place and nurse you back to health.
In a few years, they’ll make a movie about the whole thing and call it Crotchety Old Men. You will be played by Harvey Keitel.”
“Gabe.”
“Elton’s role will be filled by Danny DeVito. A match made in heaven.”
“Gabe,” Knute repeated.
“What the fuck now?” Gabe was definitely not nursing material. He had his ear out for sirens—anytime now would be great.
“Wanna know something?” Knute said.
“Can you make it quick and also focus on the not dying?”
“Never fired my service weapon at a suspect. Not once. Never got shot in the line of duty either. And now”—he dragged in a ragged, painful breath that made Gabe’s own chest twinge in sympathy—“that scumbag Mikal Petyr got me. Outrageous.”
Gabe figured being shot by someone he loathed might keep Knute angry enough to get to the hospital and fully recover and keep his mind off Elton being missing.
In the distance, but closing in fast, was the wail of sirens.
Blowing out a gusty breath, Gabe sat back on his heels but kept the shirt pressed against Knute’s shoulder.
“Thank fuck.” He wasn’t sure he’d ever been happier to hear sirens.
Now he needed to get Elton back.
No pressure.