The Other Lady Vanishes (Burning Cove #2)(76)

“Adelaide is mine,” Massey shrieked. “You stole her from me. Everything will be all right again if I get her back.”

“Who told you that, Massey?” Jake said.

“Gill explained everything. He needs her, too. It’s a matter of national security. Top secret. Very hush-hush. There’s a war coming. Gill says the government will need the drug. It will pay a fortune for a truth serum that works.”

Massey advanced another couple of paces and pulled the trigger again. Jake heard wood splinter in the dock.

“Gill already has the drug,” Jake said. “He can sell it to the government. He doesn’t need Adelaide.”

“The drug isn’t right yet. Gill needs to run some more experiments. Adelaide has to go back to Rushbrook. Don’t you understand? It’s a matter of national security.”

“If you want me to get out of the way,” Jake said, “you’ve got to answer a few more questions.”

“No more questions. You’re trying to trick me. You have to die.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Jake said.

Massey responded by pulling the trigger again.

There was a faint but distinctive click. The gun was empty.

Massey screamed.

“No,” he shrieked. “Stay away from me. Stay back.”

He sounded like a man who was fighting a waking nightmare. Jake heard a car door open. There was another volley of gunshots. Someone had accompanied Massey to the pier.

Massey screamed again, this time in pain as well as fear. But he was still on his feet. He fled down the pier. When he went past the boathouse Jake was using for cover, he did not pause. He was a man fleeing demons.

He reached the end of the pier. Jake saw him silhouetted in the moonlight. He teetered for a moment at the edge, as if trying to stop himself from going over, but he had too much momentum.

Panic-stricken, he yelled one last time and then he was gone.

The screaming didn’t stop until he sank beneath the surface of the black waters of the cove.

Jake leaned around the edge of the boathouse again just in time to hear the door of the Ford slam. The vehicle made a tight turn and rocketed off into the night, heading back to the main road. It disappeared in the direction of Burning Cove.

There was a short silence before Luther emerged from the shadows of the shed. He slipped his gun into the holster he wore beneath his jacket.

“Well, that didn’t go according to plan,” he said.

Jake holstered his own gun and took his flashlight out of the pocket of his jacket. “I’m starting to think that the plan wasn’t a good one. I don’t suppose you got a look at the driver of the Ford?”

“Sorry, no. Too busy trying to dodge stray bullets. You’d be amazed how many people get killed by stray bullets.”

Jake switched on the flashlight. “It’s a damn shame we lost Massey. He could have answered at least a few questions.”

“Yeah, after he sobered up.”

“I don’t think he was drunk,” Jake said.

The screaming started again. Hysterical shrieks echoed up from the water below the pier.

Jake moved to the edge and aimed the flashlight beam downward. Luther came to stand beside him. Together they looked at Massey, who was clinging to one of the pier uprights. He stared up into the light, his eyes wide with terror. He screamed again.

“Demons,” he yelled. “Stay away from me.”

“He’s still alive,” Luther observed. “But I’m not sure he’s going to do us any good. Sounds like he’s lost his mind. He’s hallucinating.”

“Got a hunch someone slipped him a drug before putting a gun in his hand and pointing him at me.”

“A human weapon, huh?” Luther sounded intrigued. “It’s an interesting method for committing murder, but obviously a little unpredictable. One thing’s for sure. Massey will never make it to shore on his own.”

“I doubt that he was intended to survive tonight. I think the plan was for him to kill me and then make it appear that he took his own life by jumping into the cove. When things veered off course, the guy in the Ford tried to adjust the details of the scheme.”

“If we don’t get him out of the water, he’ll drown,” Luther observed.

“He won’t be any use to us dead.” Jake peeled off his jacket and unbuckled his shoulder holster. “It was my plan that went wrong. My job to clean up the mess. If he recovers from the delirium, we still might have a shot at getting some information out of him.”

“I’ll give you a hand.” Luther shed his coat and gun. “I’ve seen men panic like this when the firing starts. That kind of fear gives them an unnatural strength. Massey won’t even realize that we’re trying to save him. He’ll fight you.”

“I’d appreciate the help.” Jake picked up a coiled rope and a boat hook and started down the wooden steps. “This job just gets crazier and crazier.”

“Job?”

“Adelaide says I need to find a job. For now, this is it.”

“Sort of similar to your old line of work, isn’t it?”

“Sort of.”

“You were good at it, as I recall.”

“It got old,” Jake said. “Or maybe it was me who got old.”