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“Have you there in three minutes!” shouted the pilot.
The door was slid shut, the helicopter already lifting into a graying sky.
Daphne contained her impatience. With the first knot untied, both ankles were free. But her upper legs remained bound, and her captor, perhaps sensing her intentions, pulled the harness up her calves, restricting her movement before loosening the rope that bound her legs.
She needed a split second. Her legs were painful and weary from the stun stick. But she couldn’t allow him to slip the harness past her knees where it would immobilize her once again—clearly his plan.
“It was your mother, wasn’t it?” she said.
Her captor froze, his stu
She pulled her knees toward her chest, leaned to the right and kicked out like she was on a rowing machine. Her captor flew back and into the wall.
She rocked and fell off the table, turning sideways, her hands and arms still bound, her left shoulder twisting toward dislocation. She kicked him again. And again.
The third blow did damage: his head struck the wall.
Metal, she knew from the sound of it. A boat!
The loop of rope binding her wrists slipped off the head end of the table. Her wrists were co
Her captor leaned forward.
Daphne kicked him again, this time in the groin, and he buckled forward.
But his hand came up holding a fish knife, and he lashed out at her, catching her forearm.
“Your mother is dead!” she shouted, assuming that to be the case and knowing this was the message that would u
She whipped the rope in front of her, catching him in the side of the face. He slashed with the knife, catching her knee.
She screamed and kicked out, and in her effort to push him away the rope caught around his head and she had him by the neck now, his back to her, her knee on his spine and she pulled back with all her strength.
Something came at her from the side—a gas canister. It caught her in the temple and she went down hard. She rolled beneath the table and the rope, still caught around his neck pulled him with her. She couldn’t get away from him now—they were tied by the rope around his neck.
He punched the knife toward her. She dodged it and, in the process, looped another length of rope around his neck.
He swung the knife upward. The rope cut.
Her hands were free.
She scurried under the table and rose to her feet while he unwrapped the rope and gasped for breath. He turned to face her.
“My angel,” he said.
“Not going to happen,” Daphne said.
She reached out for anything—the nearest thing she could grab.
She blasted an air horn that was so loud in the enclosed space they both went deaf.
Then she saw it: the stun stick. He had it in his hand as he came around the table toward her. He’d made the right choice, driving her toward the bow and away from the only steps she saw.
She fired off the air horn again: three short, three long, three short. SOS.
“She’s dead,” Daphne repeated, hoping to incite his rage, to drive him to emotion and toward making mistakes as a result.
“Did she jump to her death?” she said, guessing. “Did she leave you unfairly?”
“You don’t deserve to be like her,” he said, brandishing the stun stick as he moved ever closer. “What are we going to do with you?”
An explosion behind him, turned him around. It was not an explosion after all, but the door to the cabin disintegrating behind LaMoia’s efforts to kick it in. LaMoia took one step and fell into the cabin, and her captor lunged forward and hit him with the stun stick. LaMoia’s body spasmed and then fell limp—unconcious.
But a stun stick took time to recycle its charge. Daphne rushed him and struck the back of his head with the air horn canister.
Boldt slid down the stairs, landing on LaMoia, knocked the stun stick from the captor’s hand, took the man under the arms and threw him—threw him like he was a matter of a few pounds—across the narrow hold and into the metal hull. He followed around and pulled the man to him and struck the man in the face, blow after blow.
“Lou!” she shouted, the man’s blood coming off Boldt’s knotted fist. Again she shouted his name.
Boldt stopped and looked back at her, still holding the captor by his shirt.
He averted his eyes.
“You’ll kill him,” she said, her voice nothing but a faint whisper. She pulled a mackinaw around her. She staggered back and sat down.
“SOS,” he said. “That was a nice touch.”
“His mother,” she mumbled.
Boldt let the man go. He hit the floor with a thud. Boldt came around toward her, but she recoiled and he raised his hands.
“We’ll get you help,” he said.
She nodded, a look of defiance in her eyes, her right hand still gripping the air horn.
Boldt sat down on a folding patio chair next to her, a small drink table between them. Daphne wore extra makeup to cover a bruise on her face, a long sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans. The little girl for whom Daphne served as guardian played inside a childproofed area of the balcony. Boldt couldn’t see LaMoia setting up something like this; it had probably been Daphne.
“Are you coming back?” he asked, within seconds of sitting down.
“Two weeks paid leave,” she said. “More if I ask. I’m not an idiot.”
She’d asked him over. He hadn’t been to LaMoia’s loft since Daphne had moved in. He wasn’t sure why that was, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to figure it out, either.
She made him tea, with no offer of coffee. Milk and sugar. She drank chai, the cloves and ci
“But that’s a yes,” he said.
“It is,” she confirmed. “Are you kidding me? You think I’d quit?”
“Not likely,” he said.
“Thank you.”
“But no one would blame you—”
“Stuff it,” she said. “Don’t say another word.”
“You invited me,” he reminded.
“Not to discuss the case. His mother was on that Pacific West flight ten years ago. He was out there on the Sound when the bodies started to fall. I don’t pretend to know…There’s no fixing everyone. There’s no blame. The human mind…well, it’s why I want to get back to work.”
“We come from such different places,” he said. “I blame them all the time. I have no means, no way to fix any of them. I just want them put away. I suppose I’m the dog catcher and you’re the person, the volunteer at the shelter. Something like that.”
“Are you getting enough sleep?”
“Maybe not.” He watched the girl playing. Then he realized how relaxed Daphne was with the child. He’d pictured her the stressed and worrying type—he should have known. She couldn’t have been more at ease. “This suits you.”
“It does. Though it may not last. We’ve pretty much exhausted all the various cha
“Miracles happen,” Boldt said. “Liz tells me that all the time.”
“How is she?”
He didn’t feel right talking about his wife, his family with this woman. He thought he understood why, but marveled that that kind of discussion still made him feel restless.
Daphne said, “We’re going to give it another chance. John and me.”
Here then, was the reason she’d called. He wondered why she’d made such a deal out of it. Then he didn’t wonder at all.
“Not a quitter,” he said.
“I wanted to tell you. Like this. Here. You and me. Don’t ask me why.”
But he wanted to ask her why. “Okay,” he said.
“Is this awkward?”
“With you?”
“Okay. Thanks for that.”
“You don’t owe me this,” he said.
“Sure I do.”
“Liz is good,” he said. “The kids are great. Seriously.”
She smiled over at a building. Smiled for herself. Nodded. Gripped the arms of the folding chair a little tightly.