The Dark Tide Free for a Limited Time (31 page)

Charles Friedman sat alone on the
Emberglow,
which was now moored offshore near Gavin’s Cay. The night was quiet. His legs rested up on the gunnels, and he was halfway through a bottle of Pyrat xo Reserve rum that was trying to help him make up his mind.

He should just take off. Tonight. What Karen had told him, about people on his tail, worried him. He had a house he’d bought, on Bocas del Toro, up in Panama. No one knew about that. No one would trace him there. Then from there maybe on to the Pacific if he had to…

The way she had looked at him.
What are you going to do, Charles, run the rest of your life….

He shouldn’t involve them now.

Yet a new stirring rose up in him. The stirring of who he was, who he’d been. Seeing Karen had awakened it. Not for her—that part was over. He’d never again regain her trust. And didn’t deserve it. That, he knew.

But for the children. Alex and Sam.

Her words echoed:
They’ll forgive you, Charles…

Would they?

He thought back to the sight of them leaving the graduation. How hard it was just to look, aching, and then drive on. How deeply the sight of them burned in his memory, and the longing in his blood. It would be nice to reclaim his life. Was that a fantasy? Was it just a drunken hope? To seize it back, no matter what the cost. Who he was. From these people.

Why do they get to win?

What had he done? He hadn’t killed anyone. He could explain. Serve time. Pay back his debt. Steal back his life.

Seeing what he’d lost made Charles realize just how sorry he was to have let it go.

Neville was on shore. At a sailors’ party. In the morning they were supposed to head to Barbados. There he would leave the boat, fly to Panama.

Seeing her had suddenly made things hard.

A year ago he’d had a similar choice to make. He had watched the boy get killed. Run over in front of his eyes. Watched in horror as the black SUV drove away. Something inside told him there that he could never turn back. That that world was closed to him. The grave already dug.
So why not use it?
For a moment he’d given some thought to calling a car. Directing the driver to head up the Post Road. To his town—Old Greenwich. Then down Soundview onto Shore—in the direction of the water.
Home…
Karen would be there. She’d be worried, panicked, hearing word of the bombing. After he hadn’t called. He would say he’d been confused. Confess everything to her. Dolphin. Falcon. No one would have to know where he’d been. That was where he belonged.

Instead he had run.

The question continued to stab at him.
Why do they get to win?

The image of Sam and Alex shone in Charles’s mind with the
answer:
They don’t.
He thought of the joy he’d felt with Karen, just hearing her speak the sound of his own name.

They don’t
. Charles put down the rum. The answer suddenly clear in his head.

He ran below. He found his cell phone in his cabin and left a detailed message for Neville, telling him just what he needed him to do. The words kept ringing:
They don’t
. He went to the small pull-out counter he used as a desk, switched on his laptop. He scrolled to Karen’s e-mail address and typed out the quick, heart-felt words.

He read it over. Yes. He felt lifted. He felt alive in his own body again for the first time in a year.
They don’t.
He thought of seeing her again. Holding his kids again. He could reclaim his life.

He pressed send.

A noise came to him from up on deck, like a boat tying up. Neville, back from his reveling. Charles called out the captain’s name. Excited, he headed up to the deck. His heart was racing. He ran out from under the bridge. “Change of plans—”

Instead he stood facing two men. One was tall, lanky, in a beach shirt and shorts, holding a gun. The other was shorter, barrel-chested, with a small mustache.

Both were looking very satisfied, as if a long search had ended and they were staring at a prize they’d waited to see for a long time. The man with the mustache wore a grin.

“Hello, Charles.”

“Ty, wake up! Look!” Karen stood at the side of the bed, shaking him.

Hauck sat up. He’d been unable to get back to sleep for much of the night, troubled by his realization about the boat.

“There’s a message from Charlie,” Karen said excitedly. “He wants us to come.”

Hauck glanced at the clock. He saw it was going on eight. He never slept this late. “Come where?”

Karen, in a hotel robe, just out of the shower, shoved her BlackBerry in front of him as he tried to shake the sleep out of his eyes.

She latched onto Hauck’s hand and clasped it victoriously. “He’s gonna come in with us, Ty.”

They dressed quickly and met in the breakfast room downstairs. That was where Hauck informed Karen, afraid of under-cutting her excitement, that Charles would have to be arrested. Shaving, he had determined that the only way to make this work was to have Charles come back to the States with them of his own accord. Hauck could take him into custody there. Here, Charles would have to remain in a jail awaiting extradition. They’d have to produce a warrant, which meant going through everything with the people back home, including, in no small way, Hauck’s own part and what he’d done. That could take days, weeks. The extradition could be challenged. Charles might get cold feet. And Dietz and his people were already circling nearby.

Shortly before ten he and Karen made their way to the dock. Neville, at the helm of the white-hulled
Sea Angel,
was just cruising in.

Karen waved to him from the pier.

“Hello, ma’am.” The captain waved back as the boat pulled close. A dockhand from the hotel grabbed the line. He helped Karen climb aboard, Hauck following on his own.

“You’re taking us to Mr. Friedman?”

“To Mistuh Hon-son, ma’am. That’s what he ask me,” Neville replied dutifully.

“Are we going back to the same place?”

“No, ma’am. Not this time. The boat is at sea. It’s not far.”

Hauck took a seat in the rear, and Karen sat across from him as the dockhand threw Neville the line. Hauck felt in his pocket for the Beretta he’d brought along. Anything could happen out here.

They headed west, never more than a quarter mile out at sea, hugging the coastlines of tiny, speckled islands. The sky was blue but breezy, and the boat bounced, the twin engines kicking up a heavy wake.

Neither of them said much on the journey out. A new uneasi
ness had settled over them. Charles could give Hauck the line onto AJ Raymond’s killer, why he had started out in this from the beginning. Karen was quiet, too, maybe dealing with how she was going to explain all this to her kids.

About four islands east from St. Hubert, Neville brought the engines to a crawl. Hauck checked the map. It was a strip of land called Gavin’s Cay. There was a town on the north side of the island, Amysville. They were on a barely inhabited part, on the south. They came around a bend.

Neville pointed. “There he is!”

A large white boat sat at anchor in an isolated cove.

Hauck steadied himself on the railing and headed up to the bow. Karen followed. The boat was maybe sixty feet. Probably slept eight, Hauck figured. A Panamanian flag flew from the stern.

Neville slowed the engines to under ten knots. He traversed around a reef expertly, obviously knowing the way. Then he picked up a walkie-talkie receiver at the controls. “
Sea Angel
comin’ in, Mistuh Hon-son.”

No reply.

Charlie’s boat was about a quarter mile away. At anchor. Hauck couldn’t make out anyone on deck. Neville picked up the walkie-talkie again. The tone was scratchy.

“What’s going on?” Hauck called back to him.

The Trinidadian captain glanced at his watch and shrugged. “No one there.”

“What’s wrong, Ty?” Karen asked, suddenly worried.

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

At a slow speed, they crept up on the bobbing craft from the port side. An anchor cable stretched underwater from the bow. No sign of life on deck. Nothing.

“When is the last time you spoke with him?” Hauck called to Neville.

“Didn’t.” The captain shrugged. “He left me a message on my cell phone last night. Said to pick you up at ten and bring you here.” He brought the
Sea Angel
around to within about fifty feet.

Still nobody visible.

Hauck climbed as high as he could on the railing and peered over.

Neville coasted the
Sea Angel
closer in. He called out, “Mistuh Hon-son?”

Only silence. Worrisome silence.

Karen placed her hand on Hauck’s shoulder. “I don’t like this, Ty.”

“Neither do I.” Hauck took the Beretta from his pocket. He grasped for the railing of the larger boat as the
Sea Angel
came abreast. He said to Karen, “Just stay where you are.”

He jumped on board.

“
Hello?
” The main deck of Charlie’s boat was completely empty. But in troubling disarray. The seat cushions were upended. Compartment drawers were open. Hauck noticed an empty bottle of rum on the deck. He bent down and picked his finger at a small stain he noticed on one of the displaced cushions, and didn’t like what he saw.

Traces of blood.

He turned to Karen, who was still on the
Sea Angel
with a worried look on her face. “Stay on board.”

Shifting the gun off safety, Hauck climbed down to the cabin below. The first thing he encountered was a large galley.
Someone
had been here. The sink was filled with mugs and pots. Cabinets were open, pawed through, condiments strewn all over the floor. Farther along, toward the stern, Hauck ran into three staterooms. In the first two, the beds had been tossed, drawers open, empty. The larger one looked like the Perfect Storm had hit it. The mattress was askew, sheets ripped all about, drawers rifled through, clothes thrown everywhere.

Hauck knelt. His eye was caught by the same traces of red on the floor.

He went back up on deck. “It’s clear,” he called to Karen. Neville ran a line and helped her climb aboard. “No one’s here.”

“What do you mean, no one’s here? Where the hell is Charles, Ty?” said Karen, agitated now.

“Zodiac’s still here,” Neville said, pointing to the yellow inflatable raft, the one Karen had seen the day before, meaning that Charlie had not taken it ashore.

“Who knew he was here?” Hauck asked Neville.

“No one. Mr. Hanson kept to himself. We just moved our location yesterday afternoon.”

Karen’s face grew tense. “I don’t like this, Ty. He wanted us to come to him.”

Hauck gazed across the bay, toward the island, maybe about two or three hundred yards away. Charles could be anywhere. Dead. Taken. On another boat. He didn’t want to tell Karen about the blood, which complicated things.

“Where’s the nearest police station?” he asked Neville.

“Amysville,” the captain replied. “Six miles or so. Around north.”

Hauck nodded soberly. “Radio them in.”

“Oh, Charlie…”
Karen shook her head, exhaling a troubled breath.

Hauck went up to the bow and examined the overturned forward seat cushions, looking at the drops of blood. They seemed to lead right to the edge. He leaned over the side. The anchor line went under the surface from there. Hauck ran his hand along the cable. “Neville, hang on!”

The captain turned back from the bridge, the radio in his hand.

Hauck asked, “Do you know where the anchor switch is?”

“Of course.”

“Raise it up for me.”

Karen inhaled nervously. “What?”

Neville stared quizzically himself, then flicked a switch at the helm. Instantly, the anchor cable began to slowly wind back up. Hauck leaned over as far as he could, holding on by the railing.

“Stay back,”
he said to Karen.

“Ty, what do you think is going on?” she asked, a rising anxiousness in her tone.

“Just stay back!” The anchor motor whirred. The tightly threaded cable rewound. Finally something broke the surface. Like a kind of line. Fishing wire. Seaweed wrapped around it.

“Ty…?”

A grave dread ran through Hauck as he looked it over.

The wire was wound around a hand.

“Neville,
stop
!” he called, throwing up his own hand. Hauck turned back to Karen. The solemn feel in his gaze communicated everything.

“Oh, Jesus, Ty,
no
…”

She ran to the side to look, panicked. Hauck came back over and caught her, tucking her face firmly into his chest, hiding her from the ugly sight.

“No…”

He held on to her as she flinched, trying to break away from him. He motioned to Neville for him to raise the line a little higher.

The cable wound a few more turns. The hand that came out of the water locked tightly around the cable. Slowly, the rest of the body began to emerge.

Hauck’s heart sank.

He had never seen Charles except in Karen’s photos. What he was staring at now was a swollen, ghostly version of him. He hid Karen’s face away and held her firmly to his chest.

“Is it him?” she asked, eyes averted, unable to look.

Charles’s bloated white face rose above the surface—staring widely.

Hauck raised his hand and signaled for Neville to stop.

“Is it him, Ty?”
Karen asked again, fighting back tears.

“Yeah, it’s him.” He nodded. He pressed her face close to his chest and held her as she shook.
“It’s him.”

A launch of white-uniformed officers from the town of Amysville arrived an hour later with a local detective on board.

Together, they raised him.

Karen and Hauck stood by, watching Charles’s body pulled up on deck, stripped of the oily seaweed and debris that had clung to him and the wires that had bound him to the anchor line.

Hauck identified himself as a police detective from the States and spoke with the local official, who was named Wilson, while Karen stood by, holding her face in her hands. Hauck identified her as Hanson’s ex-wife and said they had gotten back in touch after a year and had come to visit. They both said they had no idea who would want to do such a horrible thing. Robbers, maybe. Look at the boat. That seemed easiest, without opening everything up. Whatever happened next, Hauck determined it was important that he control the investigation from the States, and if they came entirely clean with the local authorities, that wouldn’t happen. They gave their names and their addresses back in the States. A brief statement. They told the detective
what line of work Hanson had been in—investments. Hauck knew, once they checked, that Charles’s new name wouldn’t yield much.

The detective thanked them cordially but seemed to regard their stories with a skeptical eye.

Two of his men lifted Charles over to a yellow body bag. Karen asked if she could have a moment. They agreed.

She knelt down next to him. She felt she had already said her good-byes to him so many times before, shed her tears. But now, as she looked into the strange calm of his face, the puffy, bluish skin, recalling both the anguish and the resigned smile he had displayed on the beach the day before, the tears began to flow, all over again. Unjudging this time. Hot streaming rivers down her cheeks.

Oh, Charlie…
Karen picked a piece of debris out of his hair.

So many things hurtled back to her. The night they first met—at the arts benefit—Charlie all decked out in his tux, with a bright red tie. The horn-rim frames he always wore. What had he said that charmed her? “What did you do to deserve to sit with this boring crowd?” Their wedding at the Pierre. The day he opened Harbor, that first trade—Halliburton, she recalled—everything so full of hope and promise. How he would run along the sidelines at Alex’s lacrosse games, living and dying with each goal, shouting out his name—“Go, Alex, go!” clapping exuberantly.

The morning he’d called to her up in the bathroom and said he had to take the train into the city.

Karen brushed her fingers along his face. “How did you let this happen, Charlie? What do I tell the kids? Who’s gonna mourn you now, Charlie? What the hell do I do with you?”

As much as she tried, she could not forgive him. But he was still the man with whom she’d shared her life for almost twenty years. Who’d been a part of every important moment in her life. Still the father of her kids.

And she had seen, in the repentance of his eyes yesterday, a picture of what he so desperately missed.

Sam. Alex.
Her.

What the hell am I gonna do with you, Charlie?

“Karen…” Hauck came up behind her and placed his hands softly on her shoulders. “It’s time to let them do their job.”

She nodded. She put her fingers on Charlie’s eyelids and closed them for the last time. That was better. That was the face she wanted to carry with her. She lifted herself up and leaned ever so slightly against Hauck.

One of the officers stepped over to Charles and zipped up the protective bag.

And that was all. He was gone.

“They’re going to let us go,” Hauck said in her ear. “I gave them my contact info. If stuff comes out, and it’s likely it will, they’ll want to talk with us again.”

Karen nodded. “He came back to the States, you know.” She looked at him. “For Samantha’s graduation. He sat there in a car across the street and watched. I want him home, Ty. I want him back with us. I want the kids to know what happened. He was their dad.”

“We can request that the body be sent back once the medical examiner has gone over it.”

Karen sniffed. “Okay.”

They climbed back onto the
Sea Angel
and watched Charles being lifted into the police launch.

“Those people found him, Ty….” Karen fought back a rising anger in her blood. “He would’ve come back with us. I know it. That’s why he called.”

“They didn’t find him, Karen.” The troubling image of the large black schooner he’d seen grew vivid in his mind. “
We
did. We led them directly to him.” He looked over Charles’s ransacked boat. “And the real question is, what the hell would they be looking for?”