nineteen

Long, covered docks reached out into the river, surrounded by boats, large and small, that nosed in around them. They reminded Death of swimming in a pond with his brother when they were children, and the little fish that would come up and nibble on their toes.

The docks were too big to shift under their weight, but they bobbed with the wake of passing boats. The movement didn’t faze Death. He’d spent enough time at sea while in the military to be used to the feel of water beneath him. Gregory also adjusted well, Death noted. Alaina was less at ease. She’d worn canvas sandals with thick, wedge-shaped heels, and she walked in the middle of the path with her arms tucked in tight against her sides. She was carrying a large, flowered tote bag and she clutched the strap in both hands, taking tiny steps while watching her own feet apprehensively.

The Mississippi at twilight had a smell all its own. It was damp, similar to rain in the air, but with an undertone of the rich, black mud that made up the riverbed, accented with the scent of things that were growing and things that were dead. Dragonflies hovered low over the water, drawing the catfish up to feed. It was quiet at the end of the dock. The soft sound of river water moving relentlessly around and through the man-made obstacles accentuated the silence rather than disturbing it. The bank and the city seemed much farther away than they actually were.

Gregory stopped at the very last berth, where a long and ostentatious pontoon boat was tied up. “I call her the Zaca, after Errol Flynn’s yacht,” he said.

Gregory boarded first, without a backward glance. Death offered Alaina a hand, steadying her as she stepped from the dock to the deck, then followed her on. He waited for Gregory to get the engine started, then loosed the mooring line and they moved out into the current.

The river here ran almost east and west, with a curve to the south three-quarters of a mile downstream. The low sun gilded the tops of the wavelets and cast the river bend in deep shadow. As they left the dock behind, a small aircraft passed low overhead. It startled a murder of crows that had settled in the trees of the west bank and they rose in a raucous cloud and crossed the Zaca’s bow on iridescent wings.

_____

The strange girl moved away from the door and the man known as Andrew Grey rose from where he’d been kneeling in the shadows of the basement junk room. Softly he closed the lid of the chest he’d been searching through and silently followed her.

Hidden in the doorway, he watched as she hesitated between the elevator cage and the basement stairs. She chose the stairs and he crept over and peeked around the edge of the opening, watching her until she was more than halfway to the first floor. Satisfied that she didn’t intend to return, he went back to look at the door she had to have come in by. The door with the odd logo was unlocked now and stood very slightly ajar. He hesitated beside it, not wanting it to creak and betray his presence. But he hadn’t heard the woman enter and he could smell WD40, so he surmised that the hinges had been oiled.

He pulled it toward himself, his touch delicate, and it came open easily. Beyond there was an underground passage, but it was too dark to make out any details.

Deciding that the intruder was more immediately interesting than the secret passage, he carefully closed it most of the way and tiptoed back to the stairs to see what she was doing.

She was lurking at the top of the steps. She touched the door hesitantly, then went through. Andrew waited until she had cleared the stairwell, then hurried up after her with a speed and agility that would have surprised his caretakers.

He peeked out in time to see her disappear around the corner to his right. He waited and after a moment he could hear, only because he was listening for it, the soft sound of her footsteps on the treads of the main stair. He turned left, then right onto the steep, narrow service stair and quickly climbed to the second floor. There was a full-length mirror at the head of the main staircase. Alaina always checked her appearance in it before descending. Andrew used it now to watch the intruder. She had paused on the landing, beneath the wedding portrait. While she studied it, he studied her.

She was a redhead, with short, wild hair and fine, porcelain skin sprinkled with freckles. Thin, black work gloves covered her hands and there was a smear of dirt down her left cheek. She wore jeans and sneakers and a navy T-shirt that was too big on her. When she turned to continue up the stairs, he could see the Marine Corps logo on the front of the shirt. Emotion rose in the back of his throat and closed like a fist around his heart.

She wasn’t a thief, he decided. Alaina had abandoned a pair of rings and an expensive wristwatch on the landing table and the redhead passed them over without a second glance. She was chewing on her lower lip and rubbing her palms on her thighs every few minutes. Worried, he decided. She was nervous and didn’t want to be here, but she was resolute. Whatever her goal, it was important to her.

He faded back into the nearest doorway when she reached the top of the stairs and waited to see what she’d do. She hesitated, then turned and moved away from him. There was a name stenciled on the back of her shirt in faded letters. Andrew swallowed hard and stepped out into the hallway. He leaned back against the doorframe and forced himself to act casual.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” he said.

_____

Death swiveled idly in his lounge chair, pretending to take another sip of his second drink. Gregory had fixed this one. It came from the same bottle as the drinks Gregory and Alaina were working on and Death hadn’t seen anything to suggest that the doctor was trying to slip him another Mickey, but he wasn’t taking any chances.

Gregory’s pontoon boat was enormous and ostentatiously luxurious, with reclining seats, a curved bench along the prow on the port side, and a built-in bar. The helm was halfway back to starboard and Gregory lounged in his captain’s chair with a generous shot of bourbon, blatantly ignoring the laws against drinking and boating. “It’s a lovely evening,” Alaina said, tilting her head so that the sun, dipping toward the horizon now, caught her earrings and set them glittering. It was the third time she’d done so and Death wondered if she’d practiced with a mirror to get the angle right. “Shall we go upriver or down?”

“Down, I think,” Gregory said. “I told you, Mr. Bogart, that Lainey and I attended the memorial for your brother. I thought perhaps you’d like to visit the spot where the fire department scattered his ashes.”

_____

Wren turned slowly to face the man who stood two rooms away, leaning against the doorframe, watching her curiously. He was dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, carrying a wooden cane. His hair was gray but there was a thin, darker line along the part where the dye job had begun to grow out. And here were the laugh lines and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. For the first time since this whole thing started, Wren was 100 percent certain they were right.

“Randy?”

His eyes were blue-gray where his brother’s were green, but they looked like Death’s eyes nonetheless. She thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in them when he heard his name.

“Mr. Grey? Who are you talking to?”

Wren turned and groaned to herself as the formidable maid came down the hall carrying a stack of towels. The maid saw her and her eyes narrowed and hardened.

“You! How did you get in here?”

“Uh, yeah, that. Funny story,” Wren said, aware that she was talking too fast. She was an auctioneer. It was an occupational hazard. “See, there are these caves and they used to be really fancy and I was exploring them and I found this passage and there was a door—”

“Save it for the police. You can’t be up here bothering Mr. Grey.”

“She’s not bothering me,” he said. “I want to hear what she has to say.”

“You can’t,” the maid replied. “You’re very ill and she’s upsetting you.”

“She’s not upsetting me. And I can talk to anyone I want to. I am the boss, right? You work for me.”

“I work for your family. Your wife and your doctor have instructed me to take care of you. Part of that is that you’re not to have visitors. Go back to your room and when I’ve taken care of this intruder I’ll bring you your medicine.”

“But I’m not really sick, am I?”

Wren watched, fascinated, as he transformed before her eyes. He stood up straight and squared his shoulders. It added a good five inches to his height and took twenty years off his age. “And I’m also not Andrew Grey.” He reached in his pocket and took out a bright rectangle. Wren recognized it even before he held it up to show them.

It was the name tag off a St. Louis County Firefighter’s uniform.

“My name is Baranduin Bogart,” he said, “and I’d really like to know what the hell is going on!”

_____

“Don’t fall in,” Gregory cautioned.

“I’m just feeding the ducks,” Alaina said.

Drifting downstream at a leisurely pace, they’d come across a flock of ducks that surrounded the craft, quacking eagerly. Clearly they were used to being fed by boaters. Alaina had found a bag of popcorn in a cabinet under the bar and she was leaning over the railing, dropping kernels and watching the birds gobble them up. “Lean over too far and you’ll be feeding the sharks.”

She scowled at her brother.

“We’re not in the ocean! There aren’t any sharks here.”

“Actually, there are. Freshwater bull sharks have been seen as far upriver as Alton.”

The siblings both looked to Death. He was still lounging in his chair, the glass in his hand nearly empty. He half shrugged and nodded. “I’ve heard that too. Fishermen have caught one or two over the last few years, I think.”

Alaina edged away from the railing just a bit. “How big?”

“Now that I don’t know. Big enough to attack, I think. And bull sharks are one of the most aggressive species.”

“I apologize for my sister being such a poor hostess,” Gregory said. “Feeding the ducks and not feeding her guest.”

“I’m fine,” Death said.

Alaina made a face, set the popcorn aside, and went back to the bar.

“You didn’t offer him anything either,” she pointed out, “and it’s your boat.” She found some tortilla chips and salsa, poured them into bowls, and set them on a low table between the lounge chairs. “Besides, I’m used to letting the servants worry about things like that. Why didn’t we bring any servants along?” Gregory answered her with a disbelieving look. After a moment, her face grew red.

“Oh.”

Death watched the exchange with interest.

Flustered, Alaina turned back to the bar. “I think there are some cheeses and cold cuts in the refrigerator, if you’d like a sandwich.”

“I’m fine,” Death said again. He had no intention of ingesting anything these two had to offer him.

Alaina returned to the rail but the ducks had lost interest when the popcorn stopped and were headed for another craft. Traffic was light this far downriver. A houseboat, headed upstream, passed them on the port side. “Do people ever really live in houseboats?” Alaina asked.

“I’m sure they do sometimes,” Gregory’s tone was disinterested.

“More often than you’d think, I’d wager,” Death offered.

“It sounds icky,” Alaina said. “Diesel fuel and chemical toilets all the time, no room for a real staff. And what do they do if there’s a bad storm?”

“Storms can be dangerous. I remember reading about one of the big tornadoes that hit St. Louis. In the 1890s? 1896, maybe? The official death toll was in the hundreds, but some historians think the real toll was as much as double that. The tornado crossed the river and capsized and swamped a lot of the river craft. The houseboat population was largely itinerant, so no one would have necessarily missed the people who were lost. Whole families could have been drowned and their bodies never recovered.”

“This river is good at hiding bodies,” Gregory agreed. He and Alaina exchanged a brief, barely there glance. Death began assessing the potential of chips and salsa as defensive weaponry.

_____

“Yes!” Wren shrieked, delighted. She bounced down the hallway and caught Randy in a fierce hug. “You’re Randy Bogart! Only it’s Baranduin. Only your family calls you Randy. Oh, and your friends call you Bogie. And you’re alive and that’s awesome!” He didn’t return the hug.

“Do I know you?”

She froze, feeling foolish. “Um, not exactly. Not at all, actually. That would be no. But, um, I know you. Or rather, know of you.”

“Oh. Okay.” He hugged her then. “An explanation would be nice.”

“Right! Um … sorry, I know I’m saying um a lot … but, um … it’s complicated. You look like Andrew Grey, who was really rich. He died, but his wife had to hide that because she’d only inherit his money if she stayed married to him longer than his third wife so she had his body frozen and then she thawed it out and kidnapped you and left his body in your place so for, like, almost a year now everybody thought you were dead. But they made a mistake with your badge and also got your badge number wrong so we got suspicious and we figured out what was going on and I came here to try to get proof that you were you and not him because we thought they were drugging you but I guess they’re not because you know who you are and that’s kind of weird but really awesome because now it’s simple and we can just call the police and tell them you were kidnapped—”

She stopped suddenly, sensing that she was being stared at, and looked up to find Randy giving her a look. He had one eyebrow raised and he was frowning down at her doubtfully and she realized she had been talking fast again. Really fast. Like, one long run-on sentence rattled off without stopping for a breath fast. She stepped back and held up a hand.

“Sorry! Sorry. Auctioneer.”

“They were drugging me. I stopped taking the pills. Did I hear a kidnapped in there somewhere? And something about everyone thinking I’m dead?”

“Yes, but everything’s going to be all right now. We’ll call the police and you can come home and it’s going to be awesome!”

At this point they’d both forgotten the maid. Wren actually jumped a little when she spoke.

“Well,” she said, “this is inconvenient.” She tossed her stack of towels to the floor, reached in the top of her apron, and came up with a pistol. “Go back in the bedroom and sit down, both of you, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

_____

The farther downriver they traveled, the more relaxed Gregory got and the more agitated and nervous Alaina became. Death remembered promising Wren that they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything on a crowded river. He chided himself for overconfidence.

He was on his third bourbon, keeping his hand cupped around the glass to hide the level of alcohol. With no convenient potted plants to dispose of it in, he was having to judge his timing and toss it into the river when they were otherwise occupied. Alaina had drifted toward the stern.

“What are you looking at?” Gregory asked.

“Just watching the water churning out in our wake. When I was in the Caribbean with Andrew a few years ago we went boating at night. Our wake glowed in the dark, blue and green.”

“Bioluminescence,” Gregory said.

“It was very pretty.”

“Mmm. Yes, well, don’t fall into the propellers or you won’t be pretty anymore.” He looked to Death. “Did you have to take the Missouri State Water Patrol course on boating safety when you were in high school, Mr. Bogart? I remember it well, but I don’t know if they still do that.”

Death blinked sleepily, keeping his reaction time slow. The drunker they believed him to be, the greater an advantage his sobriety gave him.

“You mean the one with the pictures of all the dead bodies?”

“Yes, that one. You go into the water at the wrong time or place and the propeller can suck you right in and chop you into fish bait.” Gregory sounded mildly amused by the idea, but Death couldn’t decide if it was because that was part of his plan or just because he thought it would be a happy circumstance. Gregory fetched himself another drink, then brought the bottle over and refilled Death’s glass.

He had mentioned visiting the location where Randy’s ashes had been scattered. That had been at the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi, still several miles below them. They were passing through the wetlands and conservation areas north of St. Louis now, only the ever-present Gateway Arch on the horizon betraying the presence of a city nearby.

If Gregory and Alaina’s plan involved getting him in the water to drown, the confluence would be the place to do it. Where America’s two biggest rivers met, the surface was deceptively calm but the current below was deadly. Also, with parkland bordering the river on both sides, if they chose a time when no other craft was nearby there were less likely to be witnesses. Gregory glanced over at Death and his gaze seemed calculating to the ex-Marine. Death gave him a faint nod and saluted him with his own glass. He had no intention of dying on this river. There was too much waiting for him back on land.

_____

Wren stared. “You’re a minion? Huh. I didn’t see that coming. Alaina does have a minion after all!”

Maria snorted derisively. “I don’t work for that airhead. I report to Dr. Gregory. He knows very well his sister can’t be relied on.”

“But he can rely on you?”

“Implicitly.”

“Maria Vasquez, I’m surprised at you,” Randy chided.

“Vasquez?” Wren asked. “As in Elena Vasquez?”

“Maria.”

“Then I’m guessing Elena’s your sister-in-law.” Wren said, putting two and two together in her head and coming up with I’m-gonna-kill-this-bitch. “That’s where you got the gun, isn’t it? Not this gun, the one you lost at the convenience store.”

“Well, aren’t you just a little Miss Smarty Pants?”

“I’d say you’re pretty clever yourself. Was it your idea? Put on a fake mustache, make the police think they’re looking for a man?”

“What are you talking about?” Randy asked. The women ignored him.

“How did you like the mustard?” Wren asked.

“Mustard is a flowering plant, you know. I’ll be sure to put some on pretty boy’s grave.”

“Over your dead body.”

“You know what?” Maria said, “I’m just going to go ahead and shoot you both. That’s the simplest solution to everything. I’ll say you broke in here and killed Andrew Grey and then I wrestled the gun away from you and shot you in self-defense.”

“Now, ladies, let’s not do anything hasty.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to wash,” Wren said derisively. A little bit of her brain was freaking out because—GUN!—but it wasn’t the first time she’d had a gun pointed at her and right now she was more angry than she was scared. “The police, the fire department, and the coroner’s office all know that we think ‘Andrew’ is really Randy. He turns up dead, the first thing they’re going to do is check his fingerprints and DNA to see if we’re right. Then the ‘home invasion’ becomes a ‘failed attempt to rescue a kidnap victim’ and next thing you know, you’re going down for two counts of first-degree murder.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why do you think I snuck in here? I was trying to get DNA or fingerprints so the police would have enough evidence to start an investigation. See?” Wren pulled a handful of plastic bags from her pocket. “I brought evidence bags. The cop I talked to gave them to me.”

“Right,” Maria said skeptically. “A cop told you to go breaking and entering for evidence.”

“He just didn’t want to know how I got it. Missouri’s a capitol punishment state, too.” Wren smiled wickedly. “Which arm do you like your lethal injections in?”

“Okay, shut up,” Maria growled. “Just shut up. I need to think. Get in the bedroom, both of you. Now! Or, so help me God, I will shoot, even if I have to hide the bodies.”

Randy got Wren by the shoulder and propelled her ahead of him into the bedroom. Maria slammed the door behind them and they heard the lock click.

They stood for a moment, staring at the closed door.

“She’s a genius,” Wren said drily, taking her phone out of her pocket.

Randy rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Who are you again?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. My name’s Wren Morgan. I’m Death’s girlfriend.”

Randy struck like a snake, knocking the phone out of her hand and catching her completely off guard. The phone sailed across the room and out the window. He pushed her up against the wall and growled in her face, voice suddenly seething with fury. “I’m getting really, really tired of people lying to me! My brother’s dead. Who the hell are you?”

_____

“This is a nice boat,” Death commented. His words slurred together just a little and he slumped in his chair.

Gregory’s smile was predatory. “Not getting a little bit tipsy there, are you?”

“Please. I’m a Marine. Takes more than one bottle of booze to drink me under the table.”

“Of course.” Gregory’s phone rang. “Excuse me, I’ve got to take this,” he said. “Doctor and all, you know?”

Death saluted him with his glass and watched from beneath lowered lids as the other man moved to the far end of the boat and spoke over his cell, occasionally glancing at Death.

Alaina was very nervous now, fiddling with her glass and her jewelry and refusing to look Death in the eye. He focused on Gregory’s mouth, trying to read his lips. He wasn’t as good at it as his great-grandmother, Nonna Rogers, had been, but she’d taught him a few things before she died. “… God’s sake … she’s not … cell phone!”

Death’s heart dropped to his stomach. Crap! he thought. Wren. Busted!

_____

“He’s not dead!” Wren said.

“He is. Don’t lie to me.” Randy’s whole body felt tight as a fist, the grief as fresh and as powerful as it had been when he’d first walked into the captain’s office and seen the men in Marine uniforms waiting for him. “I may not have all my marbles in the same coffee can right now, but I remember that. That was the first thing I did remember. My brother’s dead. He went off to Afghanistan to play hero. He saved two of his men. He went back for the third.”

“He saved him too.”

“He didn’t! Their Humvee blew up. It got hit with a mortar. I remember that!”

Anger was an easier reaction than sorrow and, under the circumstances, it seemed a more useful reaction too.

“I can explain, but you’ve got to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“Please. Calm down.”

Slowly, he released her and backed away.

“Randy, Death is alive, I promise you.”

He opened his mouth to protest again because he didn’t believe that. He didn’t dare. She leaned into him, reaching up one small hand to cover his mouth.

“No, wait! Just listen to me. When you were kidnapped, the Marines hadn’t retrieved his body yet. Do you remember that? It took them three days to secure the area. When they did, and they moved in again, they found him and Corporal Barlow alive.”

“How is that even possible? Three days behind enemy lines in a burned-out Humvee?”

“Death got them out before the Humvee got hit and hid them in a cellar. When the Humvee exploded, it collapsed the cellar on top of them, which is probably why they didn’t wind up in the hands of the insurgents. Our guys went back looking for them. Semper fi, remember? No man left behind? Death was unconscious by then and nearly dead. It was a British unit that actually found them, and only because Barlow was delirious with fever and singing ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ at the top of his lungs.”

Randy dropped into the nearest chair and leaned forward, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Death’s alive? He’s really alive?”

“Yes. He’s really alive.”

He thought about this, wanting to believe it but afraid to.

“But my brother’s married. Even if he were alive, he wouldn’t have a girlfriend.”

“She left him. She’d been sleeping around while he was overseas and she’d gotten pregnant. I don’t like Madeline and I don’t get along with her at all, but I do kind of understand where she was coming from.

“When all this happened, she was about three months pregnant. She’d been trying to figure out what to say to Death. He’d been having such a hard time of it, with your parents and your grandparents dying, and now she had to give him even more grief. Then she got word that he’d been killed in action. As horrible as that was, it meant she’d never have to disappoint him, or see him sad and angry again. Two days later, you were dead and he was in a coma in a military hospital in Germany. She cut and ran. She cleaned out their bank account and went to Reno for a quickie divorce.”

“That is just what she’d do. The bitch.”

“Yeah.”

“So how’d you supposedly meet him?”

“Last spring, I got involved in a case he was working on.” She hurried on, anticipating his next question. “He’s not in the Corps anymore. His lungs were damaged and he received a medical discharge. He’s a private investigator now and sometimes a bounty hunter. He’s got an office and an apartment in my hometown, East Bledsoe Ferry, on the other side of the state. And he’s mine now. And Whoreticia isn’t getting him back, either.”

“So where is he now? Because if my brother were alive and he thought I was in trouble, he’d be here.”

“He’s out on the river with Alaina and her brother, getting them out of the house so I could sneak in and look for proof that you were you.”

“Yeah, good job at that.”

“Don’t be a smartass.”

“But he’s alive? You swear to me he’s really alive?”

“Yes! I swear.”

Randy jumped up, restless, and paced away from her, circling the room like a caged beast. “We gotta get out of here. I need to see my brother.”

“And he needs to see you. But, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s this big, locked door in the way.”

He waved a hand at the door and made a rude noise. “It opens out. I’m a fireman. Firemen don’t get locked in rooms with doors that open out. The problem is the woman with a gun on the other side. We need to figure out some kind of a weapon.”

“Oh, that,” Wren said. “I got that covered.” She yanked off her necklace and reached into her bra. “I’ve been just dying to throw rocks at that woman.”

Randy’s eyes widened as she fastened the sling to its handle and dropped most of the stones in her pocket, keeping three or four in her fist for quick ammo. “A slingshot,” he breathed. “I haven’t touched one of these since the walnut incident when I was five.”

Wren fitted the first stone into the pocket of the sling. “You said you think you can get us out of here?”

He snorted. “Please.”

She took up a position just inside the door, sling at the ready.

Randy took a second to brace himself, then reared back, lifted his right leg, and kicked the door, landing his foot right next to the lock. The wood splintered, the knob and lock busted free and the door slammed open. Sling at the ready, Wren ducked under his arm and led the way out into the hall.