Chapter 6 - Confrontation in the Storm
The boathouse smelled of old gasoline, motor oil, and wet cedar. A heavy motorboat swayed gently in the dark water slip in the center of the room.
Tied to a heavy wooden support beam near the water’s edge was Elena. Her clothes were torn, her face was bruised, and duct tape was slapped across her mouth. Her eyes widened in absolute shock and horror as she saw me burst through the door.
Standing over her, holding a heavy steel crowbar in one hand and a silenced semi-automatic pistol in the other, was Julian.
He looked nothing like the polished, charming businessman who had attended Maya’s school recitals. His expensive suit was covered in mud, his hair was wildly disheveled, and his eyes burned with a unhinged, desperate rage.
“Mark,” Julian snarled, his voice raspy as he raised the gun, pointing it directly at my chest. “You just couldn’t stay out of it, could you? You incompetent idiot. You were supposed to sit back and let me clean this up.”
“Put the gun down, Julian,” I said, keeping my hands raised, taking a slow step forward onto the wet wooden floorboards. “It’s over. Look outside. There are twenty SWAT officers surrounding this lake. You aren’t getting away.”
Julian let out a bitter, manic laugh that echoed off the metal roof. “I’ve gotten away four times before this, Mark! You think a few country cops are going to stop me? I have fifty million dollars sitting in offshore accounts, waiting for the master key!”
He snapped his gaze down to my hands. In my left hand, held tightly against my coat, was the blue notebook and the black USB key.
Julian’s eyes flared with greedy recognition. “You found it. The girl knew where it was.”
“Maya is safe,” I said, my voice dripping with pure hatred. “She’s in the hospital, locked away from you forever. And she told me everything.”
“Give me the book, Mark,” Julian commanded, stepping closer, the barrel of the gun unwavering. “Give me the book and the flash drive, or I put a bullet through Elena’s head right now, and then I sink this boat with both of you inside it.”
Behind him, Elena shook her head frantically, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. She was making muffled screams against the tape, begging me not to give it to him.
I looked at Julian, then at Elena, then down at the blue ledger in my hand.
“You want the key to your fortune, Julian?” I asked quietly.
I took two slow steps toward the open edge of the boat slip, where the dark, deep water of the lake churned beneath the swaying boat.
“Here it is.”
With a swift, powerful movement, I tossed the black USB key and the blue notebook high into the air, aiming straight over the edge into the black water.
“NO!” Julian screamed.
His instinct for greed swallowed his killer instinct. Instead of pulling the trigger, Julian instinctively lunged forward, reaching out over the open water slip to catch the ledger before it sank into the depths.
May you like
It was the only distraction I needed.
I threw my entire body weight into a tackle, slamming shoulder-first into Julian’s midsection. We both went crashing over the railing and slammed into the slick deck of the motorboat below.
