Sunset Key - Crouch Blake. Страница 10

There were dishes everywhere.

A tart cooling on the granite beside the oven.

Water dripping from the faucet.

Every second slipping by like the prick of a needle.

Fitch expected her to run. To chase her across the island. So should she stay in the house? Hide in a bedroom on the second floor and let him wander around outside in vain?

Decide. You can’t just keep standing here.

Grabbing the knife, she bolted across the room into the foyer. Jerked open the front door. Slammed it shut after her. She shot down the steps, wondering which way to go. The shore seemed like a bad idea. She headed into the interior of the island, staying off the path, fighting through the undergrowth. Gnarled branches clawed at her arms. Ripped tears in her Chanel dress. Her bare feet crunched leaves and tracked through patches of dirt. She’d barely made it fifty yards when a blinding pain seared the sole of her right foot.

Letty went down, clutching it.

In the moonlight that filtered through the leaves, she studied the damage. The underside of her foot had been starred with a dozen sandspurs. She began pulling them out one at a time. Wincing. Wondering how many minutes she had left. Less than two? Less than one?

The sound of the front door creaking open on its salt-rusted hinges answered her question.

She looked up.

All she could see was the top half of Fitch standing on the deck. When he reached back to shut the door, she noticed that he wore a strange-looking hat. He moved out of view, the steps groaning as he descended.

Letty dug the last few spurs out of her foot.

She could hear Fitch approaching.

Footsteps and heavy breathing.

She didn’t move.

Figured Fitch had to be walking up the path. It didn’t sound like he was thrashing through undergrowth.

Letty inched back farther into the shadow of the scrub oak. Tucked her chin into her knees and tried to make herself as small as possible.

Fitch passed within twenty feet.

She crouched there listening until his footfalls could no longer be heard.

Letty crawled out from under the oak and came to her feet.

Total silence.

The stars shining.

The moon still climbing in the sky.

She knew what the shore on the dock side of the island was like from that sunset stroll. A narrow strip of beach lined with vegetation. No place to hide.

She moved slowly through the scrub oak, taking care that her shoulders didn’t brush against the branches. She crested the midpoint. The island sloped gently down to the opposite shore. This side struck her as more wild. There was no beach. Just mangroves all the way down to the water.

She squeezed her way through the slim trunks. The mangroves grew more densely clustered as she neared the shore. Letty crawled on hands and knees now. The foliage above her head so thick, it blotted out the sky. Only splotches of moonlight scattered across the ground.

She went on until the trees were too close to go any farther.

They boxed her in like prison bars.

Lying on the ground, her body twisted between the mangroves, she finally breathed deep and slow.

The temperature hovered in the upper sixties, but she was shivering, covered in sweat. Her dress had been shredded as she climbed through the mangroves. It hung from her shoulders in tatters.

She felt good about this spot. Considering that it was dark, she was all but invisible. And Fitch would have a hell of a time reaching her. She couldn’t imagine the old man, who had at least ten inches on her, fitting through this grove of tightly packed trees. How big had he said this island was? Fourteen acres? Best-case scenario, she could hole up here for the night. Fitch had to report to prison tomorrow. If she could survive until then…

Letty glanced at her watch. The tips of the hour and minute hands glowed in the dark.

Seven thirty.

She should’ve been meeting Javier at the east end of the island with fifteen million dollars in a plastic tube. This should’ve been the most exhilarating, life-changing score of her life. Instead, she was being hunted down like a dog. Because she’d put her faith in a psychopath. Because, again, her judgment had failed.

Something niggled at her.

A seemingly small fact she was overlooking.

A rodent scurried through some leaves nearby.

A mosquito whined in her ear.

What was it?

No flashlight.

That was it.

Fitch hadn’t brought a flashlight outside with him. When she’d glimpsed him walking down the steps, she’d expected to see a light wink on. But it never did. And then he’d just strolled up that path in the dark like—

Her breath caught in her chest.

Like he could see.

She sat up.

That wasn’t a strange-looking hat he’d been wearing. Those were night-vision goggles.

Thirty, forty yards away—impossible to know for sure—Letty heard branches rustling.

It was the sound of something big coming her way through the underbrush.

Get out of here now.

Letty started pushing her way through the labyrinth of mangroves. By the time she broke free onto higher ground, her little black dress dangled from her by a thread.

An oak branch beside her face snapped off.

The gunshot followed a microsecond later.

A boom like a clap of thunder.

And she was running.

Arms pumping.

Gasping.

Driven by pure instinct.

She ducked to miss an overhanging branch, but another one caught her across the forehead.

Blood poured down into her face.

She didn’t stop.

There were lights in the distance.

The house.

She veered toward it. At least inside, Fitch wouldn’t have the sight advantage he held right now.

Letty came out of the scrub oak and onto the dirt path that cut down the middle of the island. For three seconds, she paused. Hadn’t had this much physical exertion in months. Her lungs screamed. She could hear Fitch closing in.

Letty opened up into a full sprint as she approached the house.

She reached the stairs, grabbed the railing.

Three steps up, she stopped. Maybe it was a premonition. Maybe it was just a feeling. Something whispered in her ear. You go in that house, you won’t ever come out alive.

She backed down the steps and stared into the darkness under the stairs. Where is the last place in the world he would expect someone to hide who can’t swim? She thought.

Her eyes fell upon the snorkel set hanging from a nail driven into the concrete.

She grabbed the snorkel and mask and took off running toward the east end of the island—the only side of it she hadn’t seen.

She shot back into the scrub oak. Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted Fitch coming into the illumination of the floodlights mounted to the deck. He pulled off the goggles to pass through the light. Held them in one hand, that giant revolver in the other. A big, sloppy grin spreading across his face like a kid playing cowboys and Indians.

Another fifty yards through the oaks, and then Letty was standing on the shore in her strapless bra and panties. Her Chanel had been ripped off completely.

The water looked oil-black.

She could hear Fitch coming.

Wondered how much time she had.

Wanted to do anything but wade out into the sea.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Letty pulled on the mask and stepped into the water. It was cool, just south of seventy-five degrees, and shallow. She took invisible steps, no idea if the next would plunge her in over her head or shred her feet on coral.

By the time she’d gone thirty feet out from the shore, the water came to her knees. At fifty feet, it reached her waist. She stopped, couldn’t force herself to take another step. Hated the feel of it all around her, enclosing her. Reminding her in so many ways of death.