Chapter Fourteen #2
“No,” Zach said. “My brother is calling the police, they should be here soon. We know people in town, but with Pearson’s boat missing, I have a feeling that’s where Marit is.
He took her, Eliot, and I need help from people with boats to find her.
” Zach was aware his tone was pleading, that he sounded desperate, but he was out of his league here.
Even though he’d made his career and home on the water, he didn’t know the fishermen in this area like he should.
He had no doubt Knox would get in touch with the Coast Guard, and they’d also be on the lookout, but the longer it took to mobilize people, the more time Pearson had to do something horrific to Marit.
While he was talking to the cops, explaining why he thought Marit had been abducted by Lucas Pearson, he needed others to actively start looking for the woman he loved.
Eliot straightened. “I know people with boats. Lots of them. Lobstermen who are even right now out on the water. I’ll call them. Tell them what’s happening. Tell them to be on the lookout for the Men At Work.”
Relief almost made Zach fall to his knees. “Do it. Call them. Call everyone.”
“On it,” Jonah said, already walking to the cockpit and picking up the mouthpiece to the radio.
As he listened to Marit’s friend and fellow lobsterman put out the request to be on the lookout for Pearson’s boat, and explain why, Zach swallowed hard. Marit was out there somewhere. She had to be all right. She simply had to be. The alternative was unacceptable.
Marit came back to consciousness in a flash. One second she was out, and the next she was fully aware of the sounds and smells around her. But she was smart enough to stay still, exactly as she was. To keep her eyes closed. She needed intel.
All the information she’d learned from the countless self-defense classes came back to her in a rush. Be smart. Think. Get away. Those were the tenets. She couldn’t do that last one, not at the moment, but she could definitely do the others.
She was lying on her stomach and obviously on a boat. The rocking motion and the smell of the sea were so deeply ingrained in her brain and blood, she knew in a heartbeat that she wasn’t on dry land.
Her head hurt, and her muscles felt as if she’d been lifting weights forty pounds too heavy for her frame.
Fucking Lucas. He’d tased her. Then rendered her unconscious. Had he stolen the Wave Rider? Hurt Eliot and Jonah? Panicked, she took a risk and opened her eyes a fraction of an inch. She saw worn and weathered boards in front of her face. Boards that had splinters.
So she wasn’t on the Wave Rider. No way would Eliot let his boat deteriorate to this condition. Which meant she had to be on Lucas’s boat, the Men At Work. He’d freaking kidnapped her. But where was he taking her? And what did he intend to do with her once they arrived at their destination?
Immediately, Marit’s mind ran through scenarios. It seemed most likely he was going to throw her overboard. The water this time of year was frigid. She wouldn’t last long if he did leave her in the water. She could swim very well, but her body would be no match for fifty-degree temperatures.
She couldn’t think of any other reason why he’d have taken her on his boat other than to throw her into the sea.
She had to prevent that at all costs. The water meant death and no future with Zach.
No Thanksgiving at his house. No first Christmas or birthdays or seeing Britt and Chad’s baby being born.
She wouldn’t be able to see how Linc and Harper’s relationship played out.
Because there was definitely something between those two, even if no one wanted to admit it.
She wasn’t going out at the hands of Lucas fucking Pearson. She’d have to wait to make her move. She was building the kind of life she’d always wanted, and she was going to fight for it. Do whatever it took to survive.
It was eerily quiet as they moved through the water. She couldn’t see where they were or where they were heading from her prone position on the bottom of the boat, but she wasn’t going to risk him knowing she was conscious.
The longer it took for them to get to wherever they were going, the angrier Marit became.
She hadn’t done one damn thing for Lucas to feel as if he had the right to kidnap her.
She worked hard, didn’t bother anyone. She should’ve let the Young brothers have free rein to do whatever they wanted to the man instead of insisting they back off.
Well, hindsight was twenty-twenty, as they always said. Marit wondered who “they” were. Who came up with these sayings?
Aware that her mind was wandering, she struggled to concentrate on the here and now.
She needed to be ready for whatever Lucas had planned for her.
For a moment, she worried that maybe he was going to meet up with Thorne, or another one of their buddies who had a thing against women working in the lobster industry.
But she’d deal with that if and when it happened.
She had no idea how long she lay on the bottom of Lucas’s boat, pretending to still be unconscious, but when the vessel began to slow, she decided it was time to “wake up.” The last thing she wanted was to still be pretending to be unconscious when Lucas decided to make his move.
She wasn’t going to make whatever he had planned easy for him.
Groaning, she rolled to her back. She wasn’t acting with that part. She was extremely sore from the jolts of electricity Lucas had shot through her body. It was also painful to swallow, most likely from where he’d wrapped his hand around her throat.
Pushing her aches and pains down, Marit opened her eyes fully as she sat up and looked around as if in a daze, trying to see if she recognized where they were, but also hoping to spot something she could use as a weapon in her immediate vicinity.
She didn’t see anything . . . but then she mentally smacked her head.
She had a weapon on her own tool belt. She always carried a knife in case she needed to quickly cut a rope that may have gotten tangled around her feet.
She didn’t dare reach for it; she didn’t want to bring Lucas’s attention to the fact that she had a weapon. But knowing she wasn’t completely defenseless was a huge relief. Gave her a little more confidence.
“What . . . ? Where am I!?” she muttered dramatically.
“Oh, good timing,” Lucas said with a sneer, as he stared down at her from his place behind the wheel of the vessel. “Have a good nap?”
What an asshole.
“Lucas? What happened?” Marit was doing her best to put on a show. To pretend she didn’t even recall that Lucas had attacked her. Maybe if he didn’t think she remembered what happened, it would give her a bit of time before he did whatever came next.
Lucas had steered his boat toward a small island.
One Marit didn’t recognize. Not that she knew the names of every island off the coast of Maine, there were way too many, but if it was one she passed every day, she would’ve recognized it.
There was no telling how far away Lucas had taken them from Rockville.
She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious, so it was impossible to know exactly where they were.
Marit’s body lurched as Lucas ran his boat aground, jamming the front of his boat into the soft sand of the island. There was a tiny little beach of sorts. Just enough sand to serve as a kind of dock.
Lucas jumped out and grabbed a rope. He splashed through the shallow water toward shore, obviously planning on tying up the Men At Work so it wouldn’t float away.
This was her chance! Marit quickly stood—and found she was surprisingly, irritatingly wobbly on her feet. She stumbled toward the controls of the boat, but to her dismay, Lucas had taken the key with him. Damn it! She’d been hoping to steal his boat right out from under him.
The next thing she tried was calling for help.
Marit grabbed for the radio and keyed the mike. But nothing happened. She frantically pushed buttons on the front of the radio, to no avail.
“You think I’m stupid?” Lucas asked as he stalked back toward the boat with an evil grin on his face. He launched himself back over the side and reached for her.
Marit attempted to dodge his grip. But still feeling the effects of being tased, she was too slow. He grabbed the front of her overalls and flung her away from the controls.
“I disconnected the wires to the radio so you couldn’t call for help if you got the chance—not that I was gonna let you get that chance. And in case you were hoping someone could track us using the black box, I’ve disabled that too.”
Marit stared at Lucas with big eyes. She’d managed to stay on her feet when he’d thrown her away from the radio, but she felt her legs going weak.
She had hoped Zach would be able to figure out that it was Lucas who’d taken her, and that he’d know to contact marine patrol to check the GPS that was mandatory for all boats leaving the harbor.
“What’s going on, Lucas?” she asked in what she hoped was a steady tone.
He grinned again, and the look of pure evil on his face sent shivers racing down her spine.
She’d messed up. Big-time. She should have reported his harassment weeks ago. But she never thought Lucas would actually kidnap her. The man was unhinged.
“You should’ve listened to me,” Lucas told her.
“And Thorne. You should’ve left Maine altogether.
Because of you, I can’t find good lobstermen.
My catch has gone to shit. Having you on a boat is bad luck—and I’m done trying to be nice.
Trying to get you to come to your senses.
So . . . I’m taking care of my fishing problem.
Once you’re gone, I’ll be able to find a halfway decent deckhand and my season will recover. ”
He was absolutely insane. That was the only thing Marit could think of.
She had nothing to do with his skill as a lobsterman or why the people he hired kept quitting.
From what she’d heard, he was a horrible boss.
Skimped on safety, ignored the rules set forth by the state and other fishing regulatory organizations, and generally behaved like an asshole.
Fishing in unsafe weather conditions, and sometimes even hauling other people’s pots to check if the area was a good one or not.
In short, Lucas Pearson should have his license taken away by the state because of how reckless he was and how many rules he broke on a regular basis.
But instead, he was blaming her for his “bad luck”? What a joke.
“Seriously? That’s why you’re doing this?
” She shook her head. “No. I don’t believe it.
It’s not my fault you break industry rules.
It’s not my fault you’re unethical, and you put everyone’s safety at risk on your boat!
So what’s the real reason, Lucas?” Marit knew she was taking a risk, knew she should probably keep her mouth shut.
But there had to be more to all this, to his months of harassment, than a silly superstition.
The look on his face when his grin turned to a scowl said she was right.
“You turned my dad in.”
Marit blinked. “What?”
“You. Turned. My. Dad. In,” Lucas repeated, enunciating each word, almost spitting them at her.
“He made the huge mistake of hiring you. It was years ago, but you betrayed him in the worst fucking way a deckhand ever could. You turned him in to the Fish and Game Commission for a whole slew of ridiculous shit. You even claimed he was keeping breeding females and oversize lobsters.”
“Oh my God . . . your father is Larry Welch?” She’d never made the connection.
Why would she? They didn’t share the same last name.
She remembered Eliot saying once that Lucas’s dad was shady.
But she hadn’t thought for a second that the man she’d worked for once upon a time—and turned in for some of the reasons Lucas cited—and the guy Eliot mentioned were one and the same.
The deep hatred Lucas had for her made sense now. It was still fucked up, but at least it wasn’t just because she was a woman.
“Yes. And he had to pay massive fines because of you, bitch! He bought me the Men At Work before I moved here . . . and he couldn’t believe it when I told him all about the stupid chick who thought she could hack it as a lobsterman in Rockville after already failing so spectacularly in Portland.
He didn’t even know you were still working in the industry.
But after we made the connection, I made it my goal to fuck with your life as much as you did my dad’s.
“Oh, and you should know, I’ve talked to Thorne about you.
A lot. When he found out what you did, he’s the one who encouraged me to pick up where he left off.
To avenge my dad, and all lobstermen who’ve been turned in and fined simply for trying to make a living.
” Then he scowled. “But he thought my ultimate plan was stupid. That it wouldn’t work.
But fuck him! It will work—has worked. Now, get over here,” he growled, pointing to a spot right in front of him.
Instead of doing as ordered, Marit took a small step backward.
She was having a hard time wrapping her mind around what was happening.
How Lucas was willing to hurt her, to do .
. . she wasn’t sure what, simply because his dad had to pay a fine for all the unsafe and illegal shit he was doing.
She supposed she should be thankful Thorne wasn’t in on this—whatever this was—otherwise she could be facing two captors right now.
But she was smart enough to know she was in deep shit either way.
Her gaze went from Lucas to the island, then back to him. She had no idea what he was going to do . . . but she certainly wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
And she was secretly relieved that whatever his plan was, he was apparently going to execute it on this island and not in the middle of the ocean. If she could get to land, she had a shot at making it out of this. A small shot, but a shot all the same.
“Get. Over. Here. Now!” Lucas growled, barking each word out menacingly.
“Not a chance,” Marit said—then launched herself over the side of the boat.