As Johansen reached for the radio microphone, Dern saw the few winking lights of Monroe far in the distance. Maybe they would make it. There was a chance! God he hoped so. Never had he felt so impotent. His back teeth ground together in frustration.
Khloe Prescott? She was behind it all? The murderer? Not Wyatt? Dern would have bet his life that Ava's dick of a husband had been behind the plot to gaslight her, had been partnered with the dead cousin. But now Garrison was injured? Maybe dead? At Khloe's hand?
His anxiety ratcheted up several notches. He only hoped Ava wouldn't do anything stupid as he stared ahead and tried to make out the huge mansion or dock of Neptune's Gate. But there was nothing but darkness.
Not a good sign.
The minutes stretched on forever.
Hurry, damn it!
He had to get to her.
Before it was too late.
Ice-cold water enveloped Ava, shocking her body, causing nerve synapses to spark for an instant, waking up her damned brain as she sank into the inky depths. Unfortunately, that skin-bracing moment of clarity lasted only a few seconds. She'd hoped the grogginess that had been overtaking her would be jolted out of her. But she'd been wrong. As soon as her body adjusted to the cold, her eyelids were heavy again. Adrenaline and icy water were no match for the drugs pumping through her veins, and deep in the salty water, she kicked without her usual strength. Fight, Ava, fight, the rational side of her brain silently screamed while the other, sadder part of her considered giving up. Letting go . . .
Slowly she rose to the surface, strings of air bubbles from her lungs spiraling upward with her.
There was a peacefulness under the water, a serenity, even though she heard the distant rumble of boat engines churning through the water, moving ever nearer.
She broke the surface and tossed her hair from her eyes, gulping air.
In the thin, bluish light from a boathouse security lamp, Khloe stood guard, as if she wouldn't allow Ava out of the water. Pale and thin, a little unsteady, she still brandished her knife, still had fight in her, as if she were unaware of the blood dripping down her arm or discoloring her sweater.
"Go ahead. Stay there," Khloe snarled, spying Ava and obviously satisfied to have her drown. "It's perfect. You'll die looking like the lunatic you are!" she yelled, but her voice was hoarse.
You die first, Ava thought, struggling to stay afloat and swimming closer to the dock.
"Just try it, bitch!"
The fight was leaving her, slowly seeping into the frigid, salty depths. Once a strong swimmer, she was now weak, losing blood, her will to live eroding.
She started to sink and flailed upward again, fighting the sedative. Cold water swirled around her, and she felt herself slipping ever deeper. Images of Dern and Noah filled her brain as she surfaced, coughed, her strength failing. Looking at the dock one last time, she saw Khloe, and this time someone was running through the shadows toward her.
Thank God!
Finally someone would help!
Tall, running fast, seeming familiar, he strode onto the dock and Khloe looked over her shoulder.
Watch out! Ava wanted to yell, to shout a warning. She's got a knife! But as she tried to force the words over her lips, she started to recognize her savior. Her eyes rounded in disbelief. No, no, no! It couldn't be.
But as the runner reached the glow of the lamplight, Ava saw the impossible unfold before her eyes as Wyatt reached his lover.
She couldn't believe her eyes; she had to be hallucinating.
He was dead from a knife wound he'd received from Khloe. Even she'd admitted to killing him to . . . to leaving him for dead.
Ava stared, transfixed, as she floated, her mind spinning in crazy circles. Was he real? Or a figment of her tortured mind?
Like Noah.
You really are crazy!
In disbelief, she watched as he wrapped his arms around Khloe, holding her close, and turned to look at the bay and his drowning wife. He smiled then . . . as if this were all part of his, or hers, no their plan.
Her splintered mind told her that Wyatt was a figment of her imagination. He had to be . . . Nothing made sense. If Wyatt were truly alive, why would he and Khloe go to so much trouble to make you think he was dead, that Khloe had killed him?
To ensure her descent into madness, or better yet, to make her look even less stable, more paranoid when she talked to the police?
She didn't understand, couldn't begin to fathom the depths of their depravity.
She felt the water dragging her down, pulling her under, and she stared through a watery field of vision to watch as he kissed Khloe hard, with more passion than she'd thought him capable of. To make a point. The injured woman tried to return his fire, but she was swooning, blood dripping from her arm, and she finally dropped her knife and flashlight.
Ava, in one of her last conscious thoughts, realized his murder was all an act, one to get Ava to react, to force her outside, onto the dock and into the water. Stupidly, she'd fallen for it. No wonder the knife Khloe had brought downstairs had glinted clean, without any trace of blood. He'd obviously been wearing a protective vest.
But Khloe had not. A killer to her very soul, so certain she would overpower Ava, she'd let down her guard, left herself vulnerable.
Through the watery haze, Ava watched them kissing, ignoring her, knowing that they'd finally won. She would die looking like the paranoid mental case they'd always claimed her to be. And even Khloe's wounds, which were visible, could be cast off as the result of a fight with Ava, who would be painted as the psychotic, knife-wielding assailant.
It was perfect . . .
Except Khloe seemed to be staggering, slipping out of Wyatt's arms.
Not that it was of any consequence.
Not anymore.
Slowly Ava sank, the water crashing over her, in the very position where she'd always seen her son. God help me. Her head was pounding and the steady thump, thump, thump she heard was out of time with her heart, a bright light as luminous as the moon.
It didn't matter.
So cold, she was so damned cold.
The bright light was beckoning her.
It was time to let go. . . .
"You got a gun on board?" Dern yelled over the roar of the boat's engine as the Holy Terror approached the island. The prow of the boat was cutting through the water, angling toward Neptune's Gate, close enough that the dock and boathouse were starting to emerge in the fog. There were other boats closing in on them, probably the sheriff's department vessels, but the Holy Terror was still in the lead. Still, Dern feared they were too late. His guts twisted at the thought, and he nearly jumped out of his skin to get to the island.
Johansen, standing at the helm, squinted into the murky darkness. "I got a spear gun. Why?"
"That all?"
"Fuck, yeah, it's all I got. All I ever needed. I'm a boat captain, not an assassin!"
"Get it! Wait, don't you have a flare gun?"
"Well . . . yeah."
"Get that, too!"
Johansen threw him a look. "Why? What the hell's going on?"
"Don't know, but it's not good."
Staring into the darkness, he saw the security lamp mounted on the side of the boathouse come into view. Its bluish, thin light illuminated the dock, and he made out the images of two people. They were clinging to each other. Embracing. Almost holding each other up.
"What the fuck?" Johansen saw them too.
So involved were they in each other that they didn't look up as the boat neared. And then he saw the third person, in the water, lying facedown.
His heart stopped.
Ava! Oh, for the love of Christ . . . "Over there!" He pointed at the lifeless body, but Johansen was already turning the prow so that they could get closer to the unmoving form.
"Son of a bitch," Johansen muttered.
Jesus, oh, Jesus! It couldn't be Ava.
On the dock, the man was waving them off.
As if he were afraid they'd hit the drowning woman.
"What the hell's going on here?" Johansen said. "Isn't that-"
"Wyatt Garrison." The prick himself. Involved with another woman. . . Khloe? The woman who was supposed to have stabbed him? Now they were embracing.
The whole scenario was bizarre, didn't match with Ava's panicked text, and yet there were dark stains on Garrison's shirt, visible from the boat. Had he been attacked in a lovers' quarrel and they made up?
He didn't know what the hell had gone down out here on this miserable island, but he didn't have time to figure it out. Johansen had pulled out the spear gun and the flare. Feeling time slipping away, Dern grabbed the smaller weapon, confirmed it was loaded. Ripping off his jacket and kicking off his shoes, he flung himself onto the deck rail and jabbed the gun into the waistband of his jeans.
"Holy Mother Mary," Johansen said, slowing the Holy Terror as close to the body as he dared. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"What does it look like?" As he heard shouts from the dock, Dern dived. Deep. Into the salty, frigid sea. He didn't give a damn about the rest of them; he just had to get to Ava. She couldn't be dead. Couldn't! There had to be time!
"What the fuck?" Snyder stared at the dock as they closed in on the island. The Holy Terror was already idling in the water not far from the boathouse, where two people, a man and a woman, were standing, huddled together. Another guy was swimming, and it looked as if there was a DB floating facedown.
"Looks like some major crap just went down," Lyons said as she snapped her pistol from its holster. "Get in close," she ordered the pilot. "It's party time!"
Snyder, too, had pulled out his sidearm while he observed the scene on the dock. The man-Garrison?-seemed to wake up and notice the police cutter for the first time. His face changed expression from curiosity to sheer horror, as if in that instant he woke up to the enormity of what was happening.
As the boat moved in closer, he started backing up, dragging the woman with him. But she seemed a dead weight. A scarlet stain was visible on her sweater, a similar one on the front of Garrison's shirt.
What the hell had gone on here?
"This isn't good," he said, but Lyons was keyed up. "We've got stragglers." Two people in the water, another at the helm of the Holy Terror. Too many people who could get in the way. One seeming already dead.
Lyons said, "Maybe now we'll finally get some answers."
Overhead, in the thin fog, the loud whomp, whomp of rotors announcing its arrival, a police helicopter roared, its searchlight bearing down on the scene.
Garrison, suddenly appearing like a caged animal-no more hotshot lawyer attitude-glanced up at the chopper, then at the police boat. He seemed to panic and tried to haul the dead weight of Khloe Prescott with him.
"Nowhere to run. He's on an effin' island, for Christ's sake," Lyons said, then picked up the bullhorn. "This is the police!" she said, her voice magnified over the water. "Wyatt Garrison, put your hands over your head!"
Ignoring the command, he changed direction and dragged Khloe toward the boathouse.
"No way, Jose! Move in," Snyder said to the pilot, reaching for his sidearm. "Block the exit. Don't let that boat get to the open water." He hooked his finger at the other boat. "And radio the bozo piloting that goddamned boat, the Holy Terror. Tell him to get the hell out of our way!"
Dern swam like hell toward Ava's motionless body.
Thwump! Thwump! Thwump! The sound of a helicopter's rotors tore through the night, and with it came an intense beam of light, illuminating the churning waters and the grounds of the estate.
God, how had this happened? How had he saved her once, only to lose her again? Rage fired his blood; adrenaline spurred him toward her.
Hang on, Ava. For the love of God, just hang on!
The sound of another boat's engine cut through the night, but Dern focused on the body, limp and floating. He reached her in seconds, flipped her body, and as he'd been trained, he swam with her to the shore and the dock where Wyatt stared in disbelief.
"This is the police!" a woman yelled through a bullhorn, the sound echoing over the open water. "Wyatt Garrison, put your hands over your head!"
Wyatt glanced up at the helicopter, then back at Dern. "Fuck this!" He dragged Khloe toward the boathouse, but she was a dead weight, her heels scraping the boards. As Dern reached the shore and the helicopter roared, the police ordered him to stop again, and this time he let go of Khloe and, as if seeing the futility of trying to save her, seemed to decide to save his own damned skin. While Khloe slid to the planks of the dock, he made a run for the boathouse.
"Stop!" the police ordered as they maneuvered their boat to cut off Garrison's escape. He slid to a stop and turned, ignoring orders to "Halt!" while Dern dragged a limp Ava onto the shore, carrying her over the rocks near the dock, watching as blood poured from a wound on her arm.
"Hang in there, Ava," he whispered, afraid she was already gone. At that thought, something deep inside of him twisted painfully. He had no idea how long she'd been in the water, but she wasn't breathing as he laid her on a strip of sand and checked her pulse. He felt nothing beneath his fingertips. He was too late! She was already gone, her body cold, her skin tinged blue.
"Come on, Ava," he said, "Come on," and he started CPR. He forced breaths into her lungs, did chest compressions, and he talked to her. "You can do this. Don't give up, damn it!" More air into her lungs. "Ava, please! Come back to me. Oh, God . . . don't die. Do you hear me? You. Can. Not. Die! I love you, damn it. Do you hear me? I love you." His voice cracked, and though he willed her to live, he felt nothing beneath his hands. No response to the breath he forced into her lungs.
Not a damned thing.
"He's getting away!" Lyons said, swearing under her breath as Garrison reached the boathouse and saw that he was blocked from making his escape. "Son of a bitch! Oh, shit, he's got a gun!"
Snyder focused on the lawyer, saw him reach into his pocket and withdraw a pistol. "Son of a bitch!" This wasn't going well. Not well at all. Already Dern had dragged the floater to the shore and was attempting CPR, but it looked too late for the woman. Though Snyder couldn't see her face, he'd bet his badge that the drowned woman was Ava Garrison.
Lyons clicked on the bullhorn again. "Wyatt Garrison, drop your weapon. Slowly! Then-Oh, crap!"
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Garrison was firing wildly. One bullet struck the hull and another cracked the windshield of the department's boat. Then he spun and took aim at Dern and the lifeless body lying near him.
"No effin' way!" Snyder said, drawing a bead on him. He fired one warning shot as Lyons screamed into the megaphone, "Drop your weapon!"
"Oh, hell, he's going to do it!"
Ava gasped, her lungs gurgling, water spouting from her nose and mouth. Her lungs were on fire and she coughed, dragging in lungful after lungful of air. It was dark, the world swimming, and she saw Dern's face. Hovering over him was a bright light, and the noise was deafening, the air rushing wildly around them.