Chapter 49

HOPE UNSCREWED THEsilencer and threw it over the side. The gunshot cracked over the ocean, rolling and echoing on the waves. Jenny didn’t move. Hope’s voice was impossibly high on the radio, the screech of a deranged woman.

“You do not want to fuck with me right now!” Hope said. “This woman is really sick. It won’t take more than a couple of shots to finish her off!”

“Fucking psychopath,” I seethed. Hope turned and popped off five shots at us. One clanged off the roof of the boat, mere inches from Tox’s head. I threw myself to the deck and listened. Tox veered the boat away.

“Good move with the tarps,” Tox said as I crawled back into the bridge.

“Detective Blue, that was a damn senseless move,” Chris Murray blasted on the radio. He wanted the water police to hear that he didn’t agree with the risk I’d just taken, in case it caused Hope to kill her hostage. He also wanted Hope to know she had a good cop to trust, now that it was clear who the bad one was. I switched over to the coastguard channel to talk back to him privately.

“She won’t kill her,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Your actions have caused the hostage injury!” Chris snapped.

“Jenny Spelling didn’t move an inch when that gun fired,” I said. “I reckon Hope’s bluffing. Probably put a hole in the deck. She can’t risk the only leverage she’s got.”

Chris switched back to Hope’s channel.

“Hope Stallwood, this is Detective Christopher Murray. The detective who disabled your engines acted completely without authority.”

Hope’s voice came over the radio: “Detective, your people are going to get an innocent woman killed. Is that what you want? Now you’re going to have to provide me with another vessel. If you don’t start listening to me I’m going to kill her. Okay? I’m going to murder her right in front of you!”

She was almost screaming. Murray needed to bring her tension levels down before she did anything stupid. I’d raised them to manic level, but it had been worth the risk. The water police and coastguard vessels were slowly maneuvering around the front of the New Hope, trying to box her in while she was distracted.

“Hope, we’re going to need you to tell us what condition Mrs. Spelling is in,” Murray said. “We can’t see what’s going on. Did you wound her just now?”

There was silence for a long time. Hope was focused on her victim. She wandered down the bridge a little, turned and paced back. Her face was taut. Jenny’s legs were moving. I could see her knees jostling through the gap in the bridge wall.

“There’s something wrong with her,” Hope’s voice crackled on the radio, frighteningly calm. “She’s having some kind of seizure.”