44. Cole

CHAPTER 44

COLE

“ T here’s no key,” Cole said after they’d jumped on board the Mako. Would this nightmare never end?

“Try this one.”

Bella threw him a bunch of keys. Three small ones, one large one. Cole tried the large key in the ignition, and although it fit in the slot, it wouldn’t turn.

“The key doesn’t work.”

“Fuck. I wasn’t sure it would—the guy loose in the prison is the one who was driving the boat, so if anyone has the key, it stands to reason that it should be him. I’m kinda surprised they didn’t just leave it in the ignition, though.”

“So we’re stuck here.”

“Unless you see any oars.” Bella had started rooting through the lockers. “On the plus side, we have snacks and ammo.” She tossed Cole a package of potato chips. “I could do with a top-up—I used twelve rounds already.”

“Twelve? That’s a very precise number. Did you count every shot or something?”

“Of course. If you don’t know how many shots you have left, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up dead. I used one round on number four, nine on number five, and two on the electrical panel to blow the lights.” Bella frowned. “Maybe I got a bit carried away with Five.”

This woman was a damn machine. She was already loading extra bullets into the clip, and Cole wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or regretful that he knew nothing about guns.

“You want a soda?” Bella asked. “It’s cold.”

She rinsed her hands at the sink behind the centre console and started eating. Cole’s stomach turned at the thought of food.

“No, I don’t want a soda. We can’t just sit here.”

“Well, we could. We have two options. The first is to wait, and someone will notice we’re gone. I suppose now I can tell you that my team will probably be the first crew to arrive. There’s a ninety-nine percent chance that they’re tracking my movements.”

“Only ninety-nine percent?”

“Few things in life are certain. The person responsible for access to the satellites could have died in her sleep. Or the relevant satellite could have been destroyed by space junk. Or the entire world could have fallen victim to a zombie plague. We don’t know because we’re stuck out here in the middle of the fucking ocean. So we can chill out, work on our tans, and hope Six doesn’t escape from the prison building, or we can take matters into our own hands. Either way, I’m glad I don’t have to eat another sea cucumber.” She held out the package in her hand. “Chip?”

She was acting so damn calm about this, and Cole had to be grateful for that because her cool head was stopping him from panicking. Bella was so utterly confident that they’d get back home.

“If you had to take matters into your own hands, as you said, how would you do it? Hypothetically speaking, of course. ”

“There are gun galleries at each end of the cellblock, and the two locked doors on the west side of the building correspond with possible entrances. The padlocks look new, and we still have three keys left to try. Have faith. If they don’t fit, maybe there’s something on board this boat that I could use to pick the locks.”

She knew how to pick locks? Was there anything she couldn’t do?

“Wouldn’t it be easier to shoot the lock off one of the doors?”

“No. First, you’d end up with metal shards embedded in your face. And second, it would give whoever’s inside a warning that you were busy cooking up a plan.”

“Okay, so say you got the door open…”

“Then I’d go inside and wait. Sooner or later, Six would move around.”

“And then you’d shoot him?”

“Then I’d shoot him.”

“What if you were going to take him alive? How would you do that?”

“We’d both need to be inside the cellblock. One of us would stage a distraction—make a noise, something like that—and when he came to investigate, the other would intercept.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“Of course it’s dangerous. He’s a big guy, and he has a gun. Knocking out the first motherfucker was relatively simple because he wasn’t expecting me. This guy’s going to be twitchy and angry and scared. Not a great combination in an opponent.”

“Do you really think there might be another way out?”

“An easy way? Unlikely. You saw the padlocks on the doors on the west side—they secured all the accessible exits. But around the back, there’s going to be a delivery entrance for the kitchen at a minimum. And possibly a fire escape? Or perhaps they didn’t care if prisoners burned to death, and there’s not much flammable stuff in there anyway. But a rear entrance for sure. When the prison was in operation, the staff areas would have been impenetrable, but we went through a bunch of unlocked internal doors today, which means there’s a chance Six could meander freely throughout. If the rear door is padlocked on the outside as the other doors have been, he’s stuck, but if it isn’t…”

Bella left the end of the sentence open, and Cole filled in the rest. “He’s coming for us.”

“Given time, he might be able to force his way out through the undergrowth, which means we can’t stay here on the boat. We need to grab what we can and find somewhere to hole up. The caves on the far side of the island are probably the best place.”

“You honestly think you can kill him?”

She nodded. “If I can’t take out a lowlife like him, I’d have to fire myself from my job because I’m clearly not good enough.”

Bella continued to search the boat for anything that might be useful while Cole slumped into a seat in the shade of the sun canopy and considered all that had happened today. Bella wasn’t the woman he’d thought she was, but maybe he wasn’t the man he’d thought he was either. Because when that nutjob’s head had disintegrated in front of him, he’d felt horror and relief, but mostly relief. And she wasn’t the monster he’d first feared either. She didn’t seem inclined to kill him, and if the key had been in the boat, they would have been well on their way to Emerald Shores by now.

And Cole thought about Adam, Frankie’s little brother. The kid who’d wanted to be a doctor until he’d fallen into the drug scene at university. The way Frankie had cried when she’d gone with her parents to scatter his ashes over the sea. Cole had been there for moral support, and he’d witnessed the agony firsthand.

Were there really drugs in the prison? Why else would a bunch of gun-toting criminals be so determined to keep strangers away? It was the perfect hiding place. And in the aftermath of Adam’s death, Cole remembered telling Frankie that if he ever got his hands on the dealer who’d sold Adam that first dose of heroin, he’d strangle him with his bare hands.

“Do it,” he said to Bella. The man had tried to kill both of them, and Cole had no doubt he’d make another attempt, given the chance.

She turned, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Do it,” he repeated. “Just get it over with.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“If you can do it without getting hurt.”

Bella studied him for a long moment. What did she see? Did she see fear? Confusion? Disappointment? Cole felt all of those, but mostly anger.

Finally, she nodded. “Then we’ll need to find you a good hiding place.”