Mason and Jess woke in the predawn, when the darkness outside began to fade, and the forest and rocks appeared as vague silhouettes beyond the cave entrance. The rain had stopped falling, but the wind was still blowing, and the ground was wet where they lay inside the cave. Lucy had weaseled her way between them, but she stirred when Mason did, grumbled and moved back toward the rear of the cave again.
Mason propped himself up, looked outside, watched the light grow, inexorable. He heard Jess rustling beside him, and then she sat up too and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Burke?” she said.
He glanced at her.
“I don’t really want to die today,” she said. “Not anymore.”
Now he really looked at her, and she was watching him, and he leaned in and kissed her, took her in his arms and held on to her.
This time was different from the first times, on the troller. This was something more intimate still, like they both of them knew to hold on to this, savor it, before the violence to come.
They moved slowly, wanting it to last, drawing warmth from each other, and strength. The cave seemed to shrink around them, as if time had slowed or even stopped altogether—but of course it hadn’t; the gray daylight seeping into their cave was proof, and soon enough the tides would turn and Kirby Harwood and the others would be here. And anyway, Lucy groaned from the back of the cave, like she couldn’t believe they were going to make her endure this again, and that was enough to break the spell and send Jess into fits of laughter, and Mason had to laugh too, and when the laughter died away, Jess wrapped her arms around him and pulled him deeper into her, her hands on his back, urging him faster, and she laughed again as she came, and then he was coming too, driving down into her and seeing stars behind his closed eyes.
They lay there together for a few minutes, but not very long. It was shortly thereafter they heard the sound of the motor.
* * *
Kirby was early. The tide wouldn’t turn for another half hour, but there he was; it had to be him, not too far away now, not if they could hear the motor with the wind blowing like it was.
Jess hurried to get dressed in the cramped space of the cave, Burke doing the same beside her. Every now and then he’d glance at her, she could feel it, or she would glance at him, but they didn’t exchange words and barely even made eye contact. There was too much to do now, and they were running behind.
She finished dressing and crawled to the edge of the cave. Peered out and across the rock and cocked her head and listened to the motor. It was a boat, that was obvious, and she couldn’t hear the helicopter. Maybe they were lucky, and Kirby had left the bird behind.
Burke poked his head out beside her. “Can’t be in the pass yet,” he said. “That engine would be louder.”
“Not yet, but soon,” she replied. “You have what you need?”
He reached back into the cave, came out with the shotgun and two of the pistols. “What about Lucy?”
“I’ll tie her up somewhere the fighting won’t reach her,” Jess said. “She’ll be okay. You just worry about doing your job.”
He saluted, saying, “Yes, ma’am,” and she had to smile.
“Go,” she said. “And stay out of sight until you hear me start shooting.”
He hoisted the shotgun. Leaned over and kissed her, hard, on the mouth, and then he was gone, skirting the rock face to the forest and disappearing within. He would circle around to the northeast end of the island, wait to trap Kirby and the boys in the pass. If all went to plan, Jess didn’t think she would need him, but even if she did, the fight was going to end quick.
She called for Lucy. Heard the dog stretch, and the jingle of her collar as she made her way out of the cave.
“Good morning, girl,” Jess told her. “Things are going to get weird for a little while here, but I don’t want you to worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Lucy looked at her with worried eyes.
“I promise,” Jess said. “We’ll take care of some business, and then we’ll get on back to the mainland and I’ll buy you a steak, okay?”
Lucy licked her face, and Jess figured that was as good an agreement as she was likely to get. She reached over to the ruined inflatable, untied the line from the bow, and tied it around Lucy’s collar, and then, crouching low, she hurried the dog into the trees and circled up and around to the top of the rock wall, above the little cave. Found a nice little spot far away from where the shooting would happen, sheltered by rock and nestled in the ferns, and tied Lucy’s line to a tree.
“You stay here,” she told the dog. “I’ll come back for you soon.”
Lucy looked at her a beat, then took to surveying the area; she nosed up to a fern and took an exploratory bite. Jess watched the dog, suddenly reluctant to leave her. The damn mutt the cause of so much of this chaos—her very existence leading Burke here and thus leading them all to this island—and the dog was more concerned with eating her greens than with the reckoning that would come.
Shit.
She loved the dog, and she was glad Burke had come into her life to help get her back. She reached over and scratched Lucy’s flank, once, and then she straightened and studied the dog, and hoped they would see each other again. She couldn’t remember ever getting this hung up on a goodbye with a human being, but hell, who on earth needed proof that dogs were better than people?
“Bye, dog,” Jess said. Lucy looked up, wagged her tail a couple of times. Went back to eating her fern, and Jess decided that was her cue. She turned and left the dog there, made her way back down toward the cliff overlooking the pass. The tide would be turning soon, and she needed to get into position.
* * *
Mason hurried through the dense forest, the shotgun in his hands and the pistols at his waist. He couldn’t hear the boat, but he knew it was out there, and he could see that the water in Dixie Lagoon was lapping at the tree line. He knew the tide was going to have to turn soon.
He had no time to think, and no time to be worried about anything other than Kirby Harwood driving that little boat up the pass before he was ready. He made the isthmus and glanced west at the open water, big, rolling swells coming in, pounding the beach and the outlying rocks with surf. He pressed on.
There weren’t any paths to the north side of the island, none that Mason could see, and the trees went right to the shoreline, so there wasn’t any beach to follow either. He had to slog his way through the middle of the forest, tangled overgrowth and deadfall, the ground muddy and soft beneath his boots, the trees saturated with rainwater. He was soaked through his jacket before he’d made it ten yards.
It took him a full half hour to struggle his way around the top of the island to the point, the terrain rocky and uneven, rising and falling and rising again. He was winded by the time he was close, and he slowed down to catch his breath and so that Kirby and his boys wouldn’t hear him crashing toward them, wouldn’t see the trees move and know he was coming.
The island stretched north and east a little farther from the entrance to the pass, but Mason figured he might not ever set foot there. He was only interested in the pass and the boat waiting offshore, fifty yards from the rocks.
The Grady-White was almost as long as Ty Winslow’s troller, but it was sleeker, whiter. It sat streamlined in the water with its twin engines burbling. Mason ducked away as soon as he saw it. He’d seen men aboard, dark jackets clustered by the console and standing guard at the stern, but he didn’t dare stick around long enough to count them. It wouldn’t matter how many Kirby had brought with him, so long as Jess could catch them with their pants down.
Mason backed away into the forest again. Retraced his steps along the north side of the pass until he found the outcrop he was looking for, a piece of rock he and Jess had spied from her cliff. From the outcrop Mason could see up the pass toward where Jess would be set up, but he’d be blocked from Harwood’s sight by the forest behind him. It was a good spot, and it was where he would set up to ambush the deputy.
He looked west toward the face of the cliff, searched the top for any sign of Jess and her rifle. He wondered what she’d done with Lucy, whether she’d kept the dog close. He wondered what Harwood would do if he got hold of the dog again, and he wished he’d brought her to this side of the island instead.
It was too late now.
The noise of the boat’s engines increased. Mason looked again for Jess on the cliff, but he couldn’t see her, and he supposed that was a good thing. He ducked back into the forest and checked and rechecked his shotgun, listened to the boat approach, and waited for his time to act.