“You want him, Renner?” I said. “Come and get him before he starts gurgling Hudson River water.”
Emmet Renner hardly knew the kid. But it wouldn’t be easy for him, I didn’t think, to face his own sister after returning home and recruiting her son to his murderous ways. That, coming right on top of the death throes of their father.
Cormac was screaming for his uncle now, begging him to save his life. If there was anyone else in earshot, we’d have company soon. It was one of the most sorrowful sounds I’d ever heard.
“People are going to come piling in from the park, Renner,” I said. “Dog walkers out for a stroll, joggers running by. Only a man with no soul could listen to this howling and not come to help.”
I couldn’t see him from where I was standing. I doubted he would leave Coop alone, but the kid made a god-awful noise and if Renner had grown up at all during his years in the desert, he’d have to respond.
“I’ve got a boat,” I said. “That’s how I brought your nephew here. I’ll put you both on it and promise safe passage through the harbor.”
Cormac Lonigan moaned and tried to summon the strength to scream again. But there was no word from Renner.
Then I heard voices shouting, coming from the wooded area in Bennett Park. Then a dog barking. Then two or three dogs.
“Where are you?” one man called out from a point on the heights above me.
“You can’t kill them all, Renner,” I yelled to him.
“I’ll take the boat, Chapman,” he called back to me. “Give me the boat and the kid.”
There suddenly seemed to be noises coming from every direction.
I had opened the floodgates by removing the gag from Lonigan’s mouth. Now the police units surrounding the lighthouse, the park, and the bridge tower would have to reveal themselves to block the well-meaning citizens from rushing to the rocks.
And Emmet Renner still had Alex Cooper.
I didn’t know what to do next. I was overwhelmed by the activity I had put in motion, and now I couldn’t figure which one of us was at greatest risk.
I decided to move forward toward the lighthouse again, hoping to get close before anyone else arrived there or lights went on around us. Emergency Services would have no choice but to move in to protect the oncoming good Samaritans. To protect everyone except Coop.
That was when I heard the sound of the Intrepid’s engine. I had left the keys in the cockpit and someone had just turned on the engine. Had Paddy Duffy freed himself from the hold? Had Emmet Renner’s accomplice circled the lighthouse and found the boat?
I was as close to panicking as I had ever been when I turned away from Renner to find out who was on board.