It should have been simple. All I had to do was find the ignition wire, which was yellow with a red stripe, then locate the solid-red power-feed wire, then the kill-switch wire, which was tan and blue. Three wires. Strip the plastic covering back about three-quarters of an inch and twist the three together, voilà. After the engines started, I’d remove the red wire.
It would’ve been that easy, except for one thing: The electrician Rusty had hired to wire the Mothership was Millard S lattery of Tavernier.
I’d warned her about him. A sly drunk. Kept his flask hidden, always had his mouth full of Juicy Fruit to cover the reek of booze, never garbled his speech. Nice fellow, sharp wit, good stories.
Since Millard’s last day on the job, I’d spent maybe a hundred hours rewiring switches, tearing out light fixtures, and redoing every plug in the staterooms and heads, grounding them, reversing the feeds, tightening loose connections. And then I spent another hundred hours tracking down a dozen other fire hazards Millard left behind.
Rusty had hired him because Millard was cheap and she was cutting every corner she could find to hit her budget. She knew he was a lush, and had given him a stern warning to stay sober on the job. It hadn’t worked.
As the trip got under way, I’d been pretty sure I’d located all his screwups, and corrected them, but I still found myself constantly sniffing for the telltale tang of shorting-out cir-cuitry.
I’d never thought to check the wiring harness. There was no outward sign of trouble. The ignition system functioned perfectly, all the instruments in the wheelhouse operated fine. If the woman in the bass boat hadn’t slashed the harness, Millard’s shortcuts probably would have gone undetected for years.
Instead of the standard color-coded wires, Millard had decided, God knows why, to use a random mix of red, green, white, blue, and black. No apparent rhyme or reason to his choices. Probably a two-flask afternoon.
I had the electrical blueprint open on the chart table and was looking back and forth between its orderly diagram and the tangled clutter spilling out of the wiring harness, trying to figure out which wires were connected to the relay that would turn over the Mercury outboards without shorting out the rest of the system.
So far the Westerbeke generators had been running fine, the air-conditioning still pumping, the lights and appliances powered up. But I could wreck all that with one wrong move. Blow the entire panel.
The Mothership’s keyed ignition used a multiple-position switch, same as most cars. A quarter turn of the key lit up the accessory circuit that powered the radios and interior lights. Click two was the instrument cluster and spark-control computer, and click three engaged the starter motors. With three positions, times two engines, times six batteries, the number of wires running to the ignition switch was in the mid-double-digits. Even on a lazy day moored safely at the docks under no pressure, I would’ve had a hard time concentrating on finding the right combination.
Mona shifted at the edge of my vision.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
I kept my focus on the schematic for a moment, trying to bring some order to my thoughts and let my pulse cool. I wasn’t sure what triggered my arousal. Maybe it was the flush that came to Mona’s face out in that nameless lake, a woman lit up by that place, those fish, savoring that stillness. A kindred spirit. Her hair, her face, some trick of light. Or the briny scent she secreted like some lush flower releasing its spores into the wind. Maybe watching Teeter die on the floor of his cabin had quickened my needs. That weird catalyzing effect the dead have on the living. Thanatos stimulating Eros.
I ran a finger along the blueprint, tracing the intricate path of the ignition wire, from the batteries in their hatch on the stern deck through the aluminum tubing that crisscrossed the inner walls and eventually led to the wheelhouse. The task was to choose the right wire and trace it back to the fuse box, jumping over the busted-up circuit breaker to draw juice directly from the twelve volts and send it to the Mercury outboards.
“Okay, then, I’m leaving. I’m going back below.”
“You recognized her voice, Mona. The woman in the boat. You know who she is.”
Mona sighed and settled into the swivel seat beside the wheel. She looked out at the darkening sky, the whitecaps kicking up on the bay.
“I did and I didn’t,” she said.
“Let’s hear the ’did’ part.”
“Her voice is familiar. I believe she’s someone I’ve met.”
“You’re sure of that?”
She waffled her hand. Somewhat sure.
“And her face? When you saw her this morning, did you recognize her?”
“I don’t know. She came at us so fast, I didn’t get that clear a look.” Mona drew her shoulders back from the slump she’d settled into. “It’s somebody from home. Summerland, Wauchula, Ona. Somebody from that world. But I don’t know. Familiar features, familiar voice, but no name, nothing specific. I can’t place the context. Some store or office around town, she’s a clerk, maybe works at the school. I’m almost certain it’s somebody from up there, but beyond that, I’m drawing a blank.”
“Okay.”
“Not that it would matter much if we knew her name.”
“It would,” I said. “It’d give us more than we have. Some leverage.”
“If she knew we recognized her, we’d all be targets. She couldn’t let any of us go.”
“We’re all targets now.”
“You believe that?”
“It’s crazy to think otherwise.”
She gazed out at the white suds kicking up on the bay as if that potent landscape could fortify herself, help her summon the words.
“Dad lied,” she said.
I waited, saying nothing, held by the burn in her eyes.
“Last week before we left home, we met with Carter Mosley.”
“So he could give you the papers for me to sign.”
“Yeah, but there’s more. We went over different scenarios. If you refused to sign. If you wanted to bargain, what changes might be acceptable. Carter needed to free up some cash in case you wanted to make a deal.”
“That’s all?”
“No,” she said. “Dad brought up the other thing. If you were to die.”
“That didn’t strike you as odd?”
“Of course it did. But Carter’s very analytical. He seemed to think it was a perfectly appropriate question.”
“Okay, so what is it? If I die, what happens?”
“You have next of kin? Wife, children?”
“No.”
“You have a will?”
I shook my head.
“Holland had it right. The land would revert to the corporation, which means it would fall into the lap of the board of directors.”
“And who is that?”
“Dad, me, Carter.”
“That’s it, just three people? That’s a board of directors?”
“It’s a family business. And it was four people until Grand-mother died.”
“Where does Mosley stand on things?”
“You mean Horse Creek? My big plan to save the world?”
“Yeah, start there. Was he on board with that?”
“He never took a stand. I was arguing for it, fleshing it out, making the case for what a good PR move it would be, how it was the ethical thing to do. We’re sitting around a big table, and Dad is mocking me, Grandmother asked a question now and then, Carter Mosley just listened. That’s his role. Advisory.”
“But he has a vote.”
“Yes. There were four votes, Carter, Dad, me, and Grandmother.”
“Four equal votes?”
“Theoretically. But whatever Grandmother wanted, game over.”
“So with Abigail dead, Carter Mosley’s got the swing vote.”
“True.”
“Do I get a place at the table? Is that part of the will?”
“Yes.”
“So there it is. Mystery man comes out of left field, throws the cozy arrangement out of whack.”
She nodded, looking out at the ashen bay.
“Tell me, Mona. When you discovered you had a cousin, this guy Daniel Oliver Thorn, and you read through Abigail’s clippings, what’d you think? That I’d be for you or against you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“What was your guess?”
“All right,” she said. ’You want the truth? From the stuff in Grandmother’s lockbox, you looked like a loser, some small-time fuck-up.”
“Not too far off.”
“But I’ve changed my mind.” Mona rubbed a finger across her lower lip, scraped off a dry flake. “I think you’re a reasonable guy. I think you’d do the right thing, given the chance.”
“But when you arrived yesterday, you saw it differently. I was some asshole who’d take one look at this big gooey pie and demand my slice. That’s why you were pissed. You’d made up your mind about me.”
“It’s how you seemed from a distance. A guy who didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Looking for a score.”
“The two nickels part is right. I like it that way.”
Her eyes held mine for a moment, then drifted toward the open water.
“You trust Mosley?”
“You saw him,” she said. “He’s okay, board-certified straight arrow.”
“What I saw was a small man with a vise-grip for a hand-shake and a strong curiosity about me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He was taking my measure,” I said. “Trying to read me.”
“Carter’s fine. He can’t admit it publicly, but he’s on my side.”
“Billions of dollars? The legal advisor of a major corporation is going to throw away billions of dollars so a river doesn’t dry up? Doesn’t sound like any lawyer I ever met.”
“I think I know Carter a little better than you.”
“Why did John lie?”
She shook her head. Not going there.
“Would John go this far, hire somebody to kill me? Erase a swing vote that just might go against him?”
She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes briefly. It was all the answer I was going to get.
“Maybe this woman’s a lone wolf,” Mona said. “She’s got her own agenda. Maybe Dad has nothing to do with any of this.”
“No way she followed us from Islamorada last night without me noticing. Which means she had our location and came from another direction. Then there’s my name. I haven’t heard that in forty years. Now it’s twice in two days. She’s connected with John and you.”
I settled back in front of the harness, the wild nest of wires. It could take hours to test every combination, this red with that red, this blue with that blue. A roulette wheel’s chance in hell I’d get it right before sunset.
I turned back to Mona and watched her face carefully. “Rusty gave Mosley our GPS coordinates. He asked her for them.”
“What?” She was squinting at me.
“He said he might fly down and join us for a day or two at the end.”
Her eyes cleared by slow degrees as if she were resurfacing from a long nap. A bite of anger tightened her face. If it was a display for my benefit, she was a better actress than she’d shown before. I didn’t trust her completely, but I was a few steps further along that path.
“So Mosley knows precisely where we’re anchored. That leaves only a few choices: He could have told you or John and one of you passed on the information to the shooter, or Carter could have passed it on directly. Or some combination.”
“Why would I want to kill you, a complete stranger?”
“I might vote against something you’re passionate about.”
“Passionate, yeah. But passionate enough to murder somebody? Come on.”
I showed her the blandest face I could muster.
“Wow.” She stared at the wires beneath the console. “Is this where you read me my Miranda rights?”
“Out here, we’re a little beyond the reach of legal techni-calities.”
“And you honestly think Dad and I could be in cahoots?”
“I don’t think the two of you could agree which way was up.”
“But in your mind I’m still a suspect.”
I said no, not really, and it must have sounded convincing, for there was relief in her sigh. She stared out the window at the rising weather. Wind was beginning to moan around the sharp corners of the wheelhouse.
I fiddled with the wires and tried a couple of combinations. Got nothing. I tried to focus on the snarl, but I could feel her watching me.
I tried another grouping, then another. I was already losing count of which I’d tried and which remained untested. To do the job right, I’d need to tag them, label each combination, scribble down a record, to do more than this flailing.
“Your mother,” she said, then halted, eyes roving the empty bay.
“My mother what?”
I tried another combination. Red with green with black. Nothing.
She drew a deep breath and blew it out through puckered lips.
“You ready to hear about her?”
I made an effort to keep my eyes on the wires. Tried to sound indifferent. “Why? What do you know about her?”
“Only what Grandmother told me.”
I used the pliers to clear the tips of two more wires.
“Why was Abigail Bates talking to you about my mother?”
“I suppose she knew one day we’d meet. She wanted me to pass it on.”
“And how would she know that?”
“The will with your name in it, and the news clippings in the lockbox kind of guaranteed it. Like she’s out there somewhere, still running the show.”
I wasn’t certain of Mona’s motives for choosing that moment to tell me the tale of my past. To distract me, to reward me, or just to unburden herself. But after a moment or two, I no longer cared why.
While I stripped the wire tips clean and twisted three more of them together, Mona told me about my mother, and eventually about my father, Quentin Thorn. Whatever chance I’d had of hot-wiring the ignition was gone.
Gradually my hands sank into my lap, and I sat staring at the nest of wires as I listened to Mona. She told the story expertly as if she’d spent a long time honing it, filtering out the trivia, all the tempting digressions that any story offers. Her voice warmed and grew heavier than I’d heard it before, a husky directness that gave the tale a melancholy hue.