Shaw watched as a dot in the sky resolved into the familiar blue-and-white seaplane. It banked low, as if to duck under the rays of sunlight still streaming from the west into the shadow of the land. The Otter touched down and immediately turned toward the boat launch at Magnuson Park. Shaw walked out to meet it.
The plane came alongside the dock and slowed. From the pilot’s seat, C.J. waved hello. Shaw made a keep-going motion. He ducked under the wing and stepped smoothly onto the float with his duffel bag to open the rear door. He placed the duffel gently inside before climbing in after it.
“I figured it would be you,” Shaw said.
“That’s the job,” C.J. called back over the thrum of the engine. “On call twenty-four/seven. Happy Fourth of July. Another hour and I’d have had to dodge the fireworks.”
Shaw looked into the storage area at the back of the plane. A milk bin full of different lengths of quarter-inch galvanized chain had been strapped firmly to the lower stanchions of the luggage rack. He picked up the duffel and hunched to walk between the passenger seats. The duffel went under the first seat on the starboard side, where it would be secure from turbulence. Shaw settled into the copilot seat and put the headset on.
“What did Rohner tell you about tonight?” he asked. “Or was it Anders?”
“Mr. Anders. He said they’re having a business meeting at the last minute because one of the partners has to go out of town early in the morning. That Mr. Rohner wanted them to have a last look at the estate.”
“Did you fly them all to the island earlier?”
She nodded. “The Droma team and Mr. Hargreaves’s people. About four hours ago.”
“How many?”
C.J. gave him a sideways look as she steered the plane to face away from shore. “How many on the flight?”
“Yeah. Rohner and Anders and who else?”
“Warren Kilbane and Mr. Castelli and Ms. Pollan. Plus Mr. Hargreaves and three others.”
“Morton, the weedy guy. He’s one of Hargreaves’s bunch,” said Shaw. “Did you know the other two?”
“Nope.”
“Bigger guys? One black man, one white with a busted face?”
She gave him that quizzical look again. “Sounds like you didn’t have to ask.”
Tucker and Vic. Leaving their curly-haired buddy Louis elsewhere. And the two hitters who had chased him across the continental U.S. Where were they?
“Mr. Anders sent me back here to pick you up,” C.J. said.
“Another private trip.”
She smiled softly. “I don’t mind.”
The summer holiday had lured plenty of boaters to the lake, but the Otter had an unobstructed path straight out from land for a quarter mile or more. They picked up speed and were airborne within another minute.
“Your bag okay there?” she said as they banked softly left. “You can strap it down in the luggage compartment in back if you want.”
“Should be fine.”
“’Cause I am expecting a few bumps. We’ve got rain coming in.”
“What’s the box of chain for?”
“That? New anchor chain for the boat.”
“Pretty lightweight for a yacht that size.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the lifeboat.”
Shaw unzipped his jacket and settled in. The view wasn’t as clear as it had been the morning C.J. had flown him over the northern reaches of the city, but the hills and islands gained extra definition from the low sun and the promised clouds far ahead.
They sat without talking for the rest of the trip, C.J. perhaps catching Shaw’s quiet mood. He remained focused on the horizon through the windshield, half his mind occupied with what was to come.
He couldn’t match the enemy for firepower. Not even close. He’d have to rely on the preparations he’d already made, already checked over in his mind two dozen times. They would be enough, or they wouldn’t. The time for strategizing was done. Now there was nothing left to do but act and react to what came, like a boxer after the bell rang.
C.J. followed as straight a route as regulations allowed, along the diagonal length of Whidbey and on up into the islands. The hour’s flight passed swiftly. They seemed to be racing the sun for which would touch the water first. The forested islands became a richer green, the straits deeper blue. As if not to be outdone, the western sky took on the sheen of polished topaz.
All the colors were momentary. Even as C.J. banked around the northern tip of Orcas, the first fingers of night crept in, robbing hue and tone in equal measure from everything. The plane dipped lower, until Shaw could see the whitecaps on the waves below. Large swells, growing larger. The Otter shuddered in the headwind. To the north, a wall of clouds loomed.
Briar Bay Island was a torch. Dark along its fat cigar length until the very tip, where Rohner’s showpiece pavilion blazed with light. The spikes and spires of the glass enclosure looked as though each sharp point had skewered a tiny sun and held it trapped.
“Whoa,” said C.J. “I’ve never seen it from the air at night.”
The pavilion was bright enough that as their plane passed Shaw thought he could make out figures moving within. A large table had been placed near the center of the structure, an image fragmented by the dozens of crooked windowpanes.
The lab, Shaw was certain. Relocated to the pavilion from the art gallery. Maybe Rohner couldn’t resist the spectacle or Anders had thought the huge pavilion and its multiple exits made a safer place for the exchange than the confined gallery.
C.J. brought the plane in. Compared to the brilliant pavilion, the solar lamps on the maintenance sheds and dock were mere specks of gold leaf, the helipad’s light a square of candles. Everything else on the island—the paths, the wings, and the main house—was dark. Doused. All attention on Rohner’s star attraction.
They landed on choppy seas. C.J. gripped the yoke tightly, letting the plane tap each successive wave until its speed lessened and the floats eased into a rumbling and rapid deceleration. The slender, crooked finger of dock was empty. C.J. steered the Otter in a wide circle around the dock’s end, the plane rocking on the waves as she made a loop to bring the starboard side in first.
Shaw took off his headset with one hand and hung it on the dashboard hook. He unclipped his seat belt.
“Mind stepping out and tying us off?” C.J. said over the idling engine as she removed her own headset.
She turned to see Shaw pointing a gun at her across the cockpit.
“What are you doing?” C.J. said, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Testing my psychic powers. Keep both hands on the wheel. And keep us next to the dock.”
Shaw moved behind her, making sure she felt the muzzle of the Browning touching the back of her hair. He reached down to run his left hand along the edge of the pilot’s chair, between C.J.’s leg and the door. His fingers touched metal. He wrapped his hand cautiously around the length and pulled. With the whispery sound of tearing tape, it came loose.
A Ruger Mark III .22-caliber. A shorter-barreled version, but with the added suppressor the weapon was more than a foot long.
“You drill the baffles on the suppressor yourself?” Shaw said.
C.J. was silent.
“Sure you did.” Shaw sniffed the gun. It didn’t have the scent of being fired. He would have been surprised if it had.
“I just have that for safety,” said C.J.
Shaw grunted. “I don’t feel safe at all.” He set the Ruger down and felt her shins and ankles and forced his hand behind her to check between her back and the seat.
“That hurt,” she said.
Shaw picked up the Ruger again and sat sideways in the copilot’s seat. He glanced toward the bin full of chain. “I’ll play fortune teller again. It would go like this: I step toward the back of the plane to open the door. You shoot me. You wrap my body with chain and drive the plane out into the strait half a mile or so, or as far as you can get with the weather like this. Then you shove me out the door. Hard work. But clean. Nobody would ever find me, except the crabs.”
“What? No. I only keep the pistol—”
“This gun’s not the same one you used to shoot Linda Edgemont, right? You’re a pro. You’d have tossed the murder weapon as soon as possible. But I’m guessing you made this”—Shaw tapped the suppressor with the barrel of his own gun—“the same way. Titanium baffles. The cops will compare the materials. They took flecks of metal off Linda.” Shaw removed the Ruger’s clip and pocketed it before ejecting the round in the chamber and tossing the gun onto the seat behind him.
“I got the pistol at a swap meet. I don’t know about baffles or anything like that. I haven’t killed anyone, for God’s sake.”
“Rangi dropped Linda off at home. You knew exactly when. All the Droma executive-transport schedules are linked online,” he said. “Planes and trains and automobiles, so you and Rangi and others can coordinate. Linda got home and you knocked on the sliding glass door in her backyard. She must have been very surprised. Maybe she thought she’d forgotten a plane flight or had left something on board. But she knew you. Trusted you. She opened the door, and that was that.”
“You’re wrong. Please listen to me.”
“You had lousy luck. A patrol cop named Beatts happened by after you left the backyard. Maybe later he’d remember you as being on the scene. So you thought fast and went from possible suspect to witness in one go. You flagged his car down and told him about a scarred man coming out of Edgemont’s yard. I don’t know if the plan had been to frame me all along, calling nine-one-one once you were clear, but you grabbed the opportunity and Beatts fell for your story. You had to give him a fake name and address. He’ll remember your face, though.” Shaw took out his phone.
“You’re crazy. I swear I didn’t kill anybody, Mr. Shaw. I’m just a pilot. Please let me out of here.”
“Sure thing, Jane.”
Her face went blank. “Who?”
Shaw held up the phone, letting her see the photo he’d taken of her personnel file in Chiarra’s office at Paragon.
“Jane Calloway,” he said. “J.C. C.J. Kind of cute.”
She said nothing.
“With Paragon four years. Your job history before that is mostly redacted, so I suppose you’re a graduate of the same spy factory that produced Hargreaves, or whatever his real name is.” Shaw shook his head. “You people have a lock on infiltration, I’ll say that. You came to work for Rohner only a month after Linda Edgemont started selling secrets. Great placement for keeping tabs, being the go-to girl for flying Rohner’s people to and from the island and anywhere else.”
“What is it you want?” she said. “We can pay you.”
Her voice was the same, yet completely different. Better enunciation and absent any hint of C.J.’s levity.
“I want to stay alive,” said Shaw. “Your job description bumps against that. Kelvin Welch was shot in New Orleans a few weeks ago. Suspected mugging. If the cops check the dates, would they coincide with vacation days you took from Droma?”
She didn’t answer.
“Kill the engine.”
She flipped switches. The pitch of the whirling prop deepened immediately as it began to coast to a stop.
Shaw stood and motioned her out of the pilot’s seat. “Move.”
Her eyes flashed to the useless Ruger as she climbed from the cockpit. Shaw nodded to the rear door.
“Onto the dock.”
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“Tie off the plane.” Shaw grabbed a twenty-foot coil of chain from the bin in the luggage compartment, hooking it over his shoulder.
While she moored the aircraft, he gave the surroundings a closer look than the plane’s windows had afforded. Only the shining upper spires of the pavilion could be seen from the dock. The rest of the island seemed even darker than it had from the air. The wind gusted, throwing bits of spray off the choppy waves over his pant legs.
“I wasn’t lying about the money,” she said. Her hands were shaking, though the night still held on to vestiges of warmth. “There’ll be plenty of it to go around. I can help you.”
Shaw spun her around and bound her hands behind her with a zip-tie from his pocket.
“Where are the rest of Hargreaves’s people?” he said.
“I flew them here. I told you.”
He hauled her to the end of the dock. To the edge. Shaw held her by the collar at arm’s length, so that she leaned out over the chill water, up on the balls of her feet. He draped the heavy coil of chain over her head.
Thirty pounds at least. No chance of staying afloat, no matter how hard she kicked.
“Don’t,” she said, her feet trying to inch back from the edge.
“Tucker. Vic. Morton. They’re here. What about the others?”
“Louis,” she said. “He’s bringing a helicopter. That’s how we’re leaving. You can leave with us.”
“We?” Shaw shook her.
“Me and Vic and Tucker and Hargreaves. Maybe Morton, too, I don’t know.”
“There are more,” he said. “A big shooter with a beard. His partner, a slimy guy with glasses. Where are they?”
“I don’t know them.”
“My arm’s getting tired,” said Shaw.
“I don’t. Hargreaves uses contractors sometimes. If he’s in a hurry or if . . . if he needs specialists, for tough jobs. Please.”
“Tell me about Nelson Bao.”
“What?”
Shaw released his grip, just for an instant. She screamed. As his fist gripped her shirt again, he had to pull back hard to keep her momentum from dragging them both in. She was leaning out over the water now. The toes of her running shoes dripping with sea foam. The chain hanging from her neck swayed side to side.
“Bao,” he repeated.
“It . . . it was an accident. Hargreaves told me to try to find the sample. He knew that Rohner had hired you. He wanted us to steal it first. I went through Bao’s room and found a jar of chemical. I thought it must be the sample, and I took it. But he saw me leaving. Chased me down to the beach.”
“And you beat his head in with a rock.” Shaw let her tilt another inch toward the black water.
“He grabbed me,” she said, as if the wind had whipped the sound from her. “It was self-defense. Please don’t kill me. I can’t drown. I can’t.” The last words were almost gibberish, choked by sobs and snot.
Finish the job. That would be Hargreaves’s way, to wipe the slate clean of all potential risks.
Shaw pulled her back. She collapsed on the dock, the weight of the chain toppling her as the metal links rattled on the planks. He felt a cobweb’s touch of compassion before thinking of Linda Edgemont and Kelvin Welch. Had either of them had an instant’s horrified realization of what was happening before this woman pulled the trigger?
At the midpoint of the dock was an all-weather storage box, like an oversize footlocker. Shaw flipped open the lid. A pair of moorage lines lay at the bottom, along with clean rags and a single life vest. He grabbed a handful of rags and walked back to where Jane Calloway sat on the dock. He removed the chain from her neck, stuffed a rag in her mouth, and tied two others around her head to hold it in place. Then he hauled her to her feet and over to the storage box.
“Get in,” he said. She lifted one leg and then the other to climb over the box’s side. Willing to cooperate while it appeared that Shaw might not end her life.
“If you’re smart,” Shaw said, “you’ll stay very quiet. Hargreaves is planning to kill everyone here, right? You know that’s his MO.”
She nodded slowly.
“How long do you think you and the rest of the Paragon hired help will survive after tonight? Hargreaves will be sitting on a trade secret he can sell for ten figures. He’s not going back to bugging telephones and bodyguarding tycoons. Anybody who can place him at the scene is an unacceptable risk.”
She stared.
“Lie down. Stay put.”
She curled up in the bottom of the box. Shaw zip-tied her feet and knees together and closed the lid. As a final assurance, he knotted the chain through the big box’s padlock hasp.
He returned to the plane and the duffel. He debated taking the Ruger—an extra gun might be useful—but ultimately decided to leave it. Better that the Ruger became evidence, to help ensure that the lethal Jane Calloway didn’t fly free.
No reason to leave a loaded gun around, however. Or a working plane. Shaw replaced the clip in the Ruger and fired five aimed shots into the instrument panel, blowing apart the compass and the altimeter and airspeed indicator and a few gauges he didn’t know. The pistol’s remaining rounds shattered the plane’s twin yokes beyond repair.
The woman had known her business, Shaw had to admit. The suppressor worked just fine. Each shot had been barely louder than the click of a metronome.