MEG WASN’T A PSYCHIC. THERE WASN’T AN intuitive or supernatural bone in her body. But somehow she picked up on Tom’s intention, saw it in his eyes or his movements. Even as his finger pulled the trigger, her body was in motion. No time to think about it, no time for a logical plan of action. She threw herself to the right, diving into the wheelhouse. She could actually feel the force of the arrow. It missed her head by inches. As she rolled on her side, she heard it puncture the wooden frame.
Thank God he was going for a kill shot. If he hadn’t aimed for her head, she might have been hit.
Tom swore.
She heard him toss the crossbow onto the ground. He must be out of arrows. Well, that was something. Time to move.
She leaped to her feet and ran to the captain’s chair. The keys were still in the ignition, and as she frantically tried to turn the engine over, she said a silent prayer promising to go to church with her mom every day for the rest of her life if only the damn engine would start.
“The harder you make it,” Tom said, “the worse you’ll suffer, I promise. Just come out and let me shoot you.”
She felt the boat shift.
Oh my God. He was climbing aboard.
Meg spun around, frantically searching for a place to hide just as a gunshot rang out. She instinctively hit the floor as the port window of the wheelhouse shattered. Broken glass sprinkled across the cabin floor. Shit. She’d forgotten about the gun.
Meg huddled behind the captain’s chair and forced herself to think as rationally as possible. Forget the crazy maniac trying to kill you. Her eyes drifted to the dark outline of Minnie, lying lifeless on the deck outside the wheelhouse. She wanted to give up. To give in.
No! She shook herself, trying desperately to clear her head. Focus, Meg.
She had two choices. There was the staircase leading belowdecks from the wheelhouse. It was the fastest and surest escape, but also the one Tom would probably follow. And once he had her below deck in the dark, she’d pretty much be trapped. The second option was the door on the starboard side of the wheelhouse. As best as Meg could remember, it led to a balcony that stretched around the front of the boat. Maybe if Tom went below she could lower herself to the main deck and escape before he even realized she was gone? It was worth a shot.
Meg cringed. Bad choice of words.
As quickly and quietly as she could, Meg crawled across the floor of the boathouse. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out as shards of broken glass cut into her palms and knees, digging deep into her flesh. The three feet across the wheelhouse felt like three miles, and her hands and legs were bloody by the time she reached the starboard door. She silently unlatched it, then pushed the metal door open a fraction of an inch. By some stroke of luck, the hinges swung open silently. Without a second thought, Meg slipped out onto the balcony, then carefully closed the door behind her.
Just in time. She barely got the door completely closed when she heard a crunching sound. Boots on broken glass.
Meg hardly dared to breathe. She crouched on the far side of the door, her hand still gripping the handle. Had he seen her? Had he seen the door close? Her heart thundered so loudly in her ears she was positive he could hear it. She waited, half expecting a bullet to shatter the window above her head, or for the door she leaned against to come crashing open as Tom barreled through. Her legs burned. Her palms stung with a mixture of sweat and blood.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Then his footsteps sounded more hollow. Thud, thud, thud.
He was going downstairs.
Yes!
As soon as Tom’s muffled footsteps faded from earshot, Meg sprang to her feet.
She tiptoed around to the front of the pilothouse, crouching low and trying to keep her head below the cockpit windows. If she could just make it to the port side of the yacht, she was pretty sure she could jump onto the floor of the boathouse. And then she’d run. And keep running. That was the extent of her plan.
She had just rounded the front of the pilothouse when gunshots erupted from the darkness. The window above her shattered. Meg screamed and ducked back behind the pilothouse, covering her head with her arms as broken glass rained down on her. She wasn’t sure how many shots he fired, but the next sound Meg heard was a shallow clicking.
No more bullets.
Finally. Finally something was going her way.
“Shit,” Tom swore from somewhere near the back of the boat. He was between her and the safety of the darkened boathouse.
She climbed over the rail of the pilothouse and lowered herself onto the foredeck below. At the bow of the boat, there was a small inverted dinghy mounted on a rack. She crawled beneath it, then wedged herself behind the winch that lowered the anchor, right in the pointed bow. It was an obvious hiding place and it wouldn’t take him long to find her. She needed to think.
Meg felt around her in the darkness. Was there anything she could use as a weapon? A coil of thick rope, the taut chain attached to the anchor, a life preserver hanging from the bulwark. So unless she was roping sheep or going overboard, she was out of luck. Perfect.
But instead of footsteps pounding toward her hiding place, she felt the weight of the boat shift again. Tom was climbing off.
She heard a clanging sound and a groan, before Tom spoke. “I meant what I said, Meg.” He sounded out of breath. “I’m going to make you suffer. After your little friend over there, you deserve it most of all.”
Meg poked her head around the dinghy and squinted into the darkness. What was he doing? “How do you figure?”
“You were there. You know.”
She heard a splashing noise, like he was throwing water onto the deck of the boat. Then the smell hit her. Gasoline.
He was going to burn her alive.
For one sick moment, she almost wished she was Minnie, lying there dead on the deck of the boat. No, don’t think that. She had to stay calm. She could figure a way out. She just had to think.
And keep Tom talking.
“Look, I don’t know what game you’re playing,” she said, mustering up as much false bravado as she could manage. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Meg crawled out from her hiding place. There was just enough light from the failing lantern in the pilothouse for her to see over the side of the boat. There were only a few inches of clearance between the starboard rail and the side of the boathouse, but up where the bow curved inward there was a little bit more space, especially between heaves of the waves. If she timed it right, she could probably jump into the water without being crushed between the boat and wall, and maybe she could swim beneath the boathouse and get back onshore. Maybe.
It was the only chance she had.
“Fine,” Tom said. She could hear the impatience in his voice. “Let me refresh your faulty memory. Homecoming night.”
Homecoming. There it was again. Maybe this was all her fault after all? If she’d just gone to the dance with T.J., maybe Minnie wouldn’t have attacked Claire? And now they were all dead: Claire, Minnie, T.J., and most likely Meg too. All because she’d been afraid to confront her best friend.
She heard Tom flicking a lighter, then the entire boathouse was aglow in orange light. She peeked around the side of the dinghy and saw him standing with a homemade torch in hand, his shirt tied around an oar, doused in gasoline, she guessed. She was running out of time.
“I’m sure to you and Minnie and your intellectually challenged dates, what you did that night barely registered on your scale of importance, but it was an arrow through my sister’s heart. Pardon the pun.”
“That’s not a pun,” Meg said. She couldn’t stop herself; the words just flew out of her mouth. Even though she was about to go up in flames Joan of Arc–style, she was tired of feeling like a victim. If she was going out, she was going out swinging.
“SHUT UP!” he roared.
Way to go, Meg. Poke the angry man-eating lion with a stick, why don’t you. But he was still talking, which gave her more time to try and read the timing of the heaving boat. The more she stalled, the better her chances.
“I don’t know,” she said, trying to sound unimpressed. “I mean, killing a bunch of us idiots off shouldn’t be that hard.”
Tom laughed. “Not hard. But brilliant. Do you have any idea the months of planning that went into this? Preparing the house, luring you all here, dealing with the Taylors … All for justice.”
“Not for the Taylors,” Meg said. “Unless they stole a choir solo from Claire too?”
“Collateral damage,” Tom said.
“I’m sure their family won’t see it that way.”
“Had to be done. It was the only way the plan worked. Every detail, every contingency had to be prepared for. By me. Who pretended to be Mr. Lawrence on the phone? I did. No one even knew I’d left the house. Climbed out my bedroom window and was across the isthmus and back in fifteen minutes. And who made sure that Jessica and her friends were all invited to a different party this weekend? Yeah, I thought of that, too, so if any of you brought it up to her, she’d think that’s what you were talking about. Hacking into Jessica’s Facebook account, dummying Tara’s cell phone to invite Kumiko, drugging the beers so you’d all sleep through Lori’s murder.”
“What?”
“Exactly,” Tom laughed. “Brilliant, right?” It was. “I couldn’t have one of you waking up while I was hauling her carcass up to the rafters, could I? I thought of everything.”
Meg saw an opening. A chink in Tom’s thick bullshit coat of armor. “Not everything.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You didn’t think of everything. You missed one really, really big thing.”
“Impossible.”
“Nope.” Meg laughed. “I wasn’t there Homecoming night.”
“Yes, you were.”
“Nope. Sorry.”
“Claire said you were.” For the first time, Tom sounded less than confident. “She told me she was going to confront you and T.J.”
“Maybe she meant to, but I canceled on T.J. that morning. I stayed home. I wasn’t there.”
Silence. Clearly this was the one outcome Tom hadn’t accounted for. Still, it wasn’t like it mattered. He couldn’t exactly let her go, and he’d already shown with the Taylors that he was willing to kill innocent people in order to avenge his sister. Meg concentrated on the motion of the boat. It was now or never.
“Whatever,” Tom said. “You’re guilty by association.”
Great logic, crazy. Meg threw a leg over the rail. She wasn’t sure this was going to work but it was better to smash her head on the side of the boat than go up in flames. She took a breath, trying to brace herself for the cold water.
Tom cleared his throat. “Enough. Meg Pritchard, it’s time to say good—”
A roar interrupted him. “Get away from her!”