Chapter 5

MURDER WAS HARDwork, but Hope had never been afraid of that.

She knelt on the floor of the kitchen of the Dream Catcher and scrubbed at the polished boards. She was trying to push her brush down the cracks and bring up the blood that had dried and settled there. Deck, she thought suddenly, dunking the brush in the bucket of hot water and bleach beside her. On yachts, the floor was not a floor at all but a deck. The kitchen was called a galley. She smiled. She’d need to get used to all the terminology. There was so much to learn, being a new boat owner. She sat back on her heels and wiped the sweat from her brow. She’d give the blood a rest for a while and work on the bedroom.

The young woman climbed backward down the little ladder and walked into the yacht’s expansive bedroom, gathering up a garbage bag from the roll she’d placed on the bed. The first thing she did was take a framed photograph from the nightstand and dump it in the darkness of the bag. She didn’t look at the couple’s smiling faces. She threw in some reading glasses, a pair of slippers, and a folded newspaper. She opened the cupboard and started taking out the woman’s clothes, grabbing great handfuls on coat hangers and bundling the shirts, skirts, and pants into a roll before she shoved them into the bag.

Jenny Spelling had awful taste, Hope thought, glancing at a turquoise skirt-suit before it went into the trash. Ugh, shoulder pads. So eighties. She felt a wave of excitement roll over her as she looked along the empty hanging rod, thinking about her own clothes racked there.

When she’d filled all the garbage bags on the rolls with their possessions, Hope walked to the back of the boat to check on her prisoners. The couple was slumped in the corner of the shower cubicle, Jenny’s head twisted back against the wall so that her nose pointed upward and her mouth hung open. When Hope opened the door, Ken shifted up as much as his binds would allow. His wife was limp against him.

“I’m just heading out to get rid of some garbage,” Hope said brightly. “You guys need anything before I go? More water?”

Jenny Spelling woke and immediately started shivering. She stared at Hope wordlessly, as though she didn’t know what the young woman was.

“Hope.” Ken’s face reddened with desperation. “I’m begging you, please, just take the boat. Take everything. My wife needs to do her dialysis or she’s going to die. Okay? It’s only going to take a few minutes. That’s all. That—”

“We’ve discussed this.” Hope held up her hand, gave him a weary sigh. “It’ll all be over soon. I’m not getting into this again. The last time I let you loose, you did this.” She held up her forearm, showed him the bruise. “Trust, Ken. You had it, and you lost it.”

“Please, please.” Ken shifted. “You don’t need to do this. Look at her. Look at her face. She’s missed her dialysis for three days now. She’s not right. She’s—”

Hope took the duct tape from the counter beside the toilet and ripped off a length. She placed a strip over Jenny’s mouth, but gave Ken a few turns around his head. He was the feisty one. She worked emotionlessly as the tape sealed off his words.

“She’s gonna die!” the man howled through the tape. “Please!”